For the idealists, why do we have apparent materialism?

[j_j]

@Wayfarer

The point is that there is an unavoidable difference between reality and the way reality is given to us: we don’t simply receive a ready-made world, but organise and interpret what is given according to the conditions of our cognition. In the history of philosophy this has been known as the distinction between reality and appearance.

I like that you highlight a crucial theme. “Reality” versus “appearance” is a version of “external” versus “internal.”

With thinkers like Mach, this dualistic framework is abandoned. The mundane “non-theological” pragmatic use of “real” is maintained, but it is no longer “inflated” as something ontologically absolute.

@Wayfarer

The danger is not that our perspective is conditioned; it is that we mistake our particular, limited perspective for reality itself.

We might also express this danger in another framework. Experience is “immediately” reality-itself, but it’s only a partial revelation. Reality “overflows” reality-for-Joe-now. We already enact this understanding in non-theoretical life. We tacitly understand that objects are also for others, and that the objects show themselves differently to others. We also expect objects to surprise us and understand the future to be uncertain. Reality is always still arriving. It is an ongoing “revelation.” Some “spatialize” our temporal situation. The uncertain future of the object congeals into a truth that is concealed spatially “behind” the object now. The object now — the experienced object — is demoted into a internal icon.

The framework tacitly invokes a “God” whose “divine perception” is of the “external” object. This theological assumption is obscured for theorists who suppress the primacy of perceptual as they theorize. Demoting perception to internal icon is the “official” conspiracy theory of philosophy.

[Patterner]

@Wayfarer

I think that’s putting the point rather too strongly.

Since I can’t understand various things about this position, I’m not surprised that I’ve gotten things wrong.

Why not just say our understanding of things is limited by things like our limited perceptions and the limits of our intelligence? Why say we’re understanding things incorrectly? Obviously, we make mistakes. But we keep at it, and come to better understandings. Why say nothing is as we think it is, that we have it all wrong? (Although now I’m not sure if you say that.)

It’s hard for me to say what I’m thinking… For most of history, we weren’t aware of things like (what we currently call) atoms and electron shells. I don’t know what people thought “solid object” meant. Maybe they originally thought a rock could be broken into smaller and smaller pieces forever, and the pieces would always be rocks. Later on, maybe they thought you would eventually get to a smallest piece of rock, something indivisible (the word atomos), but still a rock. Whatever they thought, it couldn’t have reflected how atoms and electron shells interact.

Now we know quite a bit more. Things like atoms and electron shells. When I drop my pen, it hits the floor, bounces a little, and stops. It does not go through the floor, into the earth, perhaps eventually settling in the center of the planet, after going through it, back and forth, like a pendulum, until it stops. (This reminds me of a fun episode of ST:TNG with absolutely terrible science.)

I’ve heard it said there are no solid objects, because there is so much space between nucleus and electrons. But solid is not defined as “no space between particles”. Some characteristics of solids are fixed shape, fixed volume, retain their shape, and can’t pass through other solids.

And how do solids come to exist? For different elements and compounds, the specifics vary, so we’d have to look each one up. But think of things like electron shells, temperature, and pressure. Solidity isn’t false. This is how solidity is accomplished. We don’t perceive reality falsely. We perceive it correctly, just incompletely. People in car accidents wouldn’t avoid injury if they perceive more completely.

@Wayfarer

The point is that there is an unavoidable difference between reality and the way reality is given to us: we don’t simply receive a ready-made world, but organise and interpret what is given according to the conditions of our cognition.

Of course. But I don’t see how that means there wasn’t anything there before there were “describers” or “entities for whom meaning existed”. Why say this:

@Wayfarer

The universe doesn’t exist outside consciousness, but neither does it not exist there

There are any number of stars, planets, moons, asteroids, and meteors in this wide universe that nothing with any awareness has ever been aware of. Why say the first half of that sentence, that they do not exist outside consciousness? We know darned well there’s a universe out there. Our telescopes find more every second. We just can’t talk about the parts we can’t see. How is that mysterious or controversial? Sure, until we do become aware of them, there’s nothing to talk about.

I feel I’m rambling by now. And I don’t know how much I’m misrepresenting your position. So I’ll call it a day.

[Tom_Storm]

@Patterner

There are any number of stars, planets, moons, asteroids, and meteors in this wide universe that nothing with any awareness has ever been aware of. Why say the first half of that sentence, that they do not exist outside consciousness? We know darned well there’s a universe out there. Our telescopes find more every second. We just can’t talk about the parts we can’t see. How is that mysterious or controversial? Sure, until we do become aware of them, there’s nothing to talk about.

Perhaps I’m wrong but I think the argument is fairly easy to follow and I need to add I am agnostic about this. It’s in the manner of Kantianism: our understanding of reality is mediated by our cognitive faculties, senses and conceptual frameworks. We have no way of demonstrating that what we experience and describe gives us access to reality as it is in itself. Saying there is a universe existing independently of our awareness may be a reasonable inference, but it doesn’t establish that we know reality independently of the conditions through which we experience it. The idealist simply chooses the latter frame. Pointing to our telescopes doesn’t add anything: they are extensions of our sensory and cognitive capacities, not a way of reaching beyond them.

The universe “out there” is itself largely, perhaps even mostly, a product of our innate cognitive capacities. It may well be grounded in some externality, some “noumena” for want of a better term, but we have no direct access to what that is in itself. Our human representation of it therefore does not provide an Archimedean point from which to apprehend reality independently of the conditions of our own cognition. We don’t see a universe as such, we see a range of contingencies based on our functioning, language, culture, etc. I think that’s the best I can do for now with this.

In some ways this argument might also go some way towards post-structuralist accounts of reality, and doesn’t have to get you to idealism per se and certainly not God.

I think this debate just points to how different dispositions tend to follow the inferences into different directions. Some people find this frame irritating and unsatisfying for a range of reasons. Thoughts?

[Wayfarer]

@Patterner

Why say the first half of that sentence, that they do not exist outside consciousness? We know darned well there’s a universe out there. Our telescopes find more every second. We just can’t talk about the parts we can’t see. How is that mysterious or controversial? Sure, until we do become aware of them, there’s nothing to talk about.

I feel I’m rambling by now.

You’re not! These are all good and meaningful questions!

Maybe I should say again what I mean by idealism. I describe it as realistic idealism or cognitive idealism, because it’s based on the understanding of the role of the body/brain/mind in construeing the world. We don’t passively receive data from an existing world, although that’s part of it. But our actual concious experience is the consequence of the synthesising of sensory data with our mental capacities. But I don’t want to make that sound simple, because it’s not simple. It requires meta-cognitive insight — recognition of how the brain/mind is operating. That is why Kant is such a key figure in these debates— not that he has the last word, by any stretch, but because the insight which he described as the ‘copernican revolution in philosophy’ is still so important. (There’s a book called Kant and the Mind, Andrew Brook, on how relevant many of Kant’s ideas remain in cognitive science.)

It’s also true that Kant is a notoriously difficult philosopher.

So——from an empirical perspective, we know that the world pre-dated us by billions of years, we know now the age of the cosmos with far greater precision than did our ancestors. But Kant himself was an empirical realist. So he would take issue with none of that. Where I think his transcendental idealism is still relevant is that it shows us that, no matter how comprehensive empirical science becomes, it can never step outside the conditions of human cognition in order to describe reality as it is independently of those conditions. Science can tell us, with extraordinary precision, what the universe is like as it appears within the framework of our possible experience; it cannot thereby establish what that same reality is like apart from any possible experience of it. The latter is not a scientific question awaiting a more complete answer—it marks the boundary between empirical knowledge and the transcendental question of the nature of knowing.

[Patterner]

@Tom_Storm

It’s in the manner of Kantianism: our understanding of reality is mediated by our cognitive faculties, senses and conceptual frameworks.

On the one hand, we perceive the universe through our senses. It seems to me it isn’t possible for our senses to receive false input. We may interpret it falsely, but how something presents itself to us can only be a result of its qualities. Our senses work as they do for a reason. Eyes evolved to detect light because objects reflect light. Reflecting light is a characteristic of things. Eyes evolved to see shapes because light reflects off of things the way it does, rather than, for example, every photon always reflecting back exactly asking the same path it came in on.

Our cognitive faculties, on the other hand, are tricky. They are part of this universe, our brains are made of the stuff of this universe, following the laws of this universe. It hardly seems possibly for us to misunderstands things as badly add we often do. Still, we can get it right, and correct our misunderstandings.

@Wayfarer

There’s a book called Kant and the Mind, Andrew Brook, on how relevant many of Kant’s ideas remain in cognitive science.)

It’s also true that Kant is a notoriously difficult philosopher.

Thanks. Perhaps I’ll go for the $46 paperback, instead of the $1,976 hardcover. I’ve obviously never read any philosophy, and Kant isn’t one I expect is easy.

@Wayfarer

Science can tell us, with extraordinary precision, what the universe is like as it appears within the framework of our possible experience; it cannot thereby establish what that same reality is like apart from any possible experience of it.

Yes, that seems obvious and easy enough. But does it matter? If we can’t perceive or detect something in any way, then doesn’t that also mean it’s not affecting us in any way? We can work with the parts of reality that we can detect, and those we can’t aren’t an issue anyway. What would be the difference between the reality apart from any possible experience of it, and there being no reality apart from what we can experience?

But a big question for me is, What does all this have to do with the nature of consciousness? Isn’t that why idealism is usually discussed?

[Jay]

@Wayfarer

It’s also true that Kant is a notoriously difficult philosopher.

A great deal of that is down to the fact that he was such a crappy writer – at least as translated into English. That’s why cribs and summaries and interpretations of Kant are so valuable. I don’t actually find his ideas all that hard to understand. I’ll put that Brook book on my list.

[Patterner]

Oops. Small, big error in my previous post. A “can” that should have been “can’t”. corrected now.

[wonderer]

@Patterner

On the one hand, we perceive the universe through our senses. It seems to me it isn’t possible for our senses to receive false input.

Any physical sensor is going to have limitations. So to me it seems inescapable that there will be conditions that result in false input.

Consider flicker fusion threshold.

Or consider the use of slow motion replay in sports. It is quite common for there to be good reason to question people’s unaided visual perception, whereas with the use of slow motion replay, disagreements can often be resolved to everyone’s satisfaction.

[Mww]

@wonderer

Any physical sensor is going to have limitations.

Yes, but the point isn’t limitations, it’s the relative quality of something already within the limitations, otherwise it couldn’t be an input.

And…..added bonus, back to the thread title…….because there is an input, an input about which the senses cannot lie or tell the truth, the material inputs cannot possibly be merely apparent.

[Patterner]

@wonderer

Any physical sensor is going to have limitations. So to me it seems inescapable that there will be conditions that result in false input.

The input - photons hitting retina; vibrations in the air hitting eardrum; molecules coming into contact with the tongue; etc. - can’t be false. Even when photons bounce off a mirror before hitting my retina, the fact that I think the object they hit before they hit the mirror is not where I think it is isn’t because the input is false. But yes, those are good examples of times when they are interpreted falsely.

[wonderer]

I see what you are saying. I guess my default understanding is not to consider something to be “input” until it has been tranduced into another form (e.g. nerve impulses).

With “input” understood in the way you seem to think of it, I have no disagreement.

[Patterner]

I gotcha. Maybe I should use a different word? Stimulus? Or does that only apply after it has stimulated?

[wonderer]

Yeah, “stimulus” seems like a good choice.

[Wayfarer]

@Patterner

But a big question for me is, What does all this have to do with the nature of consciousness? Isn’t that why idealism is usually discussed?

It has to do with the nature of reality. Which is after all the central question of philosophy. The distinction between reality and appearance. Even the ‘problem of consciousness’ comes down to that.

By the way, I’m not recommending buying Andrew Brook’s book — it’s the fact that it exists, and is by a credentialed scholar, that I was pointing to. My interest in idealism began with the realisation of the convergence between cognitive science and philosophical idealism, the constructive role of the mind.

@Jay

[Wayfarer]

"One seemingly obvious argument against idealism is that we know that the physical world existed long before any conscious beings evolved — so we can be sure that the physical world can exist without any mind to behold it.

Put another way, how could the mind (or the observer, or consciousness ) be fundamental, when rational sentient beings such as ourselves (and ours are the only minds we know of) are such late arrivals in the long pre-history of the universe?

This objection is often deployed as a kind of trump card against any argument for the primacy of consciousness.

It is this line of argument that is to be scrutinised here."

[Jay]

@Wayfarer

By the way, I’m not recommending buying Andrew Brook’s book

Whew – back off the list! Yes, I take your point about the continuing relevance of Kant.

[Wayfarer]

There are various articles by Andrew Brook, one being the SEP entry on Kant’s View of Mind and Consciousness of Self.

[Patterner]

@Wayfarer

One seemingly obvious argument against idealism is that we know that the physical world existed long before any conscious beings evolved — so we can be sure that the physical world can exist without any mind to behold it.

Put another way, how could the mind (or the observer, or consciousness ) be fundamental, when rational sentient beings such as ourselves (and ours are the only minds we know of) are such late arrivals in the long pre-history of the universe?

In my view, consciousness and mind are unrelated. Everything is conscious. Few things have minds. So yes, “the physical world existed long before any conscious beings evolved”. But consciousness was there all along.

[Patterner]

@Wayfarer

By the way, I’m not recommending buying Andrew Brook’s book — it’s the fact that it exists, and is by a credentialed scholar, that I was pointing to.

It wasn’t going to be soon anyway.

[Wayfarer]

Well, there’s considerable latitude in how such terms as ‘consciousness’, ‘mind’, ‘awareness’, and the like, are defined. It depends very much on the domain of discourse in which they’re being used. I mean, Freudian psychology, Jungian psychology, cognitive science, and philosophy might all use slightly different senses.

But in the passage of mine that you quoted, I’m positing that ‘mind’ is an aspect or manifestation of ‘consciousness’. The way I use the term ‘consciousness’, it is present in a rudimentary sense in all organic life. I can’t see any sense in saying that the consciousness is an attribute of the elementary constituents of matter. It’s presence is what distinguishes organic from inorganic - which is why I don’t hold to panpsychism, rather to biopsychism “the philosophical position that all living things, and only living things, possess mind or sentience.”