Existence only appears or manifests....

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Re: Existence only appears or manifests....

Post by Terrapin Station »

phenomenal_graffiti wrote: January 31st, 2020, 9:43 am What does 'do something theoretical' even mean?
It's not something I (phenomenally) observe. It's not part of my phenomenal experience. It requires that I think about things, think about "what's really going on," think about how things might be connected, what they might imply, etc. and reach a conclusion about it.
When you state: 'the phenomenal appearance of a tree seeming to be a tree' do you mean 'tree' as in the tree as it appears in the absence of consciousness?
As it appears without the phenomenal appearance of consciousness or the phenomenal appearance of "this is consciousness experiencing the tree" or anything like that. That leaves aside the question of whether it's "really" consciousness experiencing it or not. It's only presenting the phenomenal as the phenomenal. To decide that it's "really" consciousness experiencing it requires something theoretical as above.
Do trees independent of persons exist, given that existence only appears as a person and it's experience of a tree?
The point is that phenomenally, we don't (at least not always) have "the appearance of a person and its experience of a tree." Phenomenally it's often just "a tree."
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Re: Existence only appears or manifests....

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phenomenal_graffiti wrote: January 30th, 2020, 1:30 pmThe basic mistake of non-idealism is to assume that intentional or physical objects exist. Given we only have evidence of the existence of mental objects that only appear within the consciousness of a person and are constructed of the consciousness of that person, we have no evidence (experience) of something that is not a person and that which the person experiences. Physical objects are therefore fundamentally imaginary (the imagination made up of, well, subjective experience) and probably do not exist.
Idealism presupposes falsely that sensory perception involves "ideas" qua mental images that are its objects, because e.g. visual perception is not like watching TV.
phenomenal_graffiti wrote: January 30th, 2020, 1:30 pmAs "physical" means "that which is not first-person subjective experience/that which is something other than first-person subjective experience"…
No, "physical" doesn't mean that. If it did, reductive physicalism would be false by definition—which it isn't and shouldn't be.
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Re: Existence only appears or manifests....

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Terrapin Station:
phenomenal_graffiti wrote: ↑Fri Jan 31, 2020 8:43 am

What does 'do something theoretical' even mean?
It's not something I (phenomenally) observe. It's not part of my phenomenal experience. It requires that I think about things, think about "what's really going on," think about how things might be connected, what they might imply, etc. and reach a conclusion about it.
Fair enough. 'Something theoretical' is something that is not part of what one is experiencing 'now', but an idea about the nature of things one concludes is true or false according to whether or not one happens to believe in the objective existence of the idea. Thus a phenomenal tree is a tree that 'i (phenomenally) observe....that is 'part of my phenomenal experience'.

If a phenomenal tree is a tree that 'i (phenomenally) observe....that is 'part of my phenomenal experience', this does not falsify my claim that a phenomenal tree is a visual experience of a tree that is the visual version or mode of subjective experience. This is not 'something theoretical', not a though about 'what's really going on', but a fact of experience independent of theory.

The phenomenal appearance of a tree, therefore, indeed seems to be that of a tree, but the appearance only occurs to a conscious being. As the conscious being, using the mythology that the brain creates consciousness as support observes only a consciousness-composed tree generated by neurons and not a non-consciousness composed tree not created by the brain, the phenomenal appearance of a tree that seems only to be a tree is composed of consciousness. This is not theoretical, if brains create consciousness.
When you state: 'the phenomenal appearance of a tree seeming to be a tree' do you mean 'tree' as in the tree as it appears in the absence of consciousness?
As it appears without the phenomenal appearance of consciousness or the phenomenal appearance of "this is consciousness experiencing the tree" or anything like that.
A tree in the absence of consciousness cannot appear, and has never appeared. Trees have only ever appeared in the form of a consciousness experiencing a tree.
That leaves aside the question of whether it's "really" consciousness experiencing it or not.
Consciousness is indeed 'experiencing it', if one defines consciousness as experience and not something other than experience. Thus a tree, even if it appears only as a tree, does not appear unless and until there is a consciousness experiencing it. That being said, the question of whether or not a tree exists when a consciousness is not experiencing a tree is theoretical.
Do trees independent of persons exist, given that existence only appears as a person and it's experience of a tree?
The point is that phenomenally, we don't (at least not always) have "the appearance of a person and its experience of a tree." Phenomenally it's often just "a tree."
But although phenomenally a tree is just "a tree", trees have never appeared unless they are accompanied by a person and its experience of a tree.
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Re: Existence only appears or manifests....

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Consul:
phenomenal_graffiti wrote: ↑Thu Jan 30, 2020 12:30 pm

The basic mistake of non-idealism is to assume that intentional or physical objects exist. Given we only have evidence of the existence of mental objects that only appear within the consciousness of a person and are constructed of the consciousness of that person, we have no evidence (experience) of something that is not a person and that which the person experiences. Physical objects are therefore fundamentally imaginary (the imagination made up of, well, subjective experience) and probably do not exist.
Idealism presupposes falsely that sensory perception involves "ideas" qua mental images that are its objects, because e.g. visual perception is not like watching TV.
Idealism holds there are only persons and their experiences, and that 'unperceived substance' (Berkeley), that which is not a person and its experience, does not exist. Mental images of objects are not one and the same thing as sensory experience of objects.
phenomenal_graffiti wrote: ↑Thu Jan 30, 2020 12:30 pm

As "physical" means "that which is not first-person subjective experience/that which is something other than first-person subjective experience"…
No, "physical" doesn't mean that. If it did, reductive physicalism would be false by definition—which it isn't and shouldn't be.
Really? "Physical" doesn't mean that? What, pray tell, is the "physical" if it is not something that is not conscious experience? In the mythology that brains create consciousness, consciousness only exists if there are brains as every instance of consciousness requires and is accountable to some function of the brain. If "physical" includes subjective experience, is there subjective experience (the fact or act of experiencing and that which is experienced during the act) that does not require the brain, or that exists independent of brains?
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Re: Existence only appears or manifests....

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phenomenal_graffiti wrote: January 31st, 2020, 3:43 pm
Consul wrote: January 31st, 2020, 11:00 amIdealism presupposes falsely that sensory perception involves "ideas" qua mental images that are its objects, because e.g. visual perception is not like watching TV.
Idealism holds there are only persons and their experiences, and that 'unperceived substance' (Berkeley), that which is not a person and its experience, does not exist. Mental images of objects are not one and the same thing as sensory experience of objects.
Okay, Berkeley distinguishes between ideas of sense and ideas of the imagination, so the former had better be called sense-impressions or sense-data rather than sense-images.

QUOTE
"The ideas of sense are more strong, lively, and distinct than those of the imagination; they have likewise a steadiness, order, and coherence, and are not excited at random, as those which are the effects of human wills often are, but in a regular train or series, the admirable connexion whereof sufficiently testifies the wisdom and benevolence of its Author. Now the set rules or established methods, wherein the mind we depend on excites in us the ieas of sense, are called the Laws of Nature: and these we learn by experience, which teaches us that such and such ideas are attended with such and such other ideas, in the ordinary course of things."

"The ideas imprinted on the senses by the Author of Nature are called real things: and those excited in the imagination being less regular, vivid and constant, are more properly termed ideas, or images of things, which they copy and represent. But then our sensations, be they never so vivid and distinct, are nevertheless ideas, that is, they exist in the mind, or are perceived by it, as truly as the ideas of its own framing. The ideas of sense are allowed to have more reality in them, that is, to be more strong, orderly, and coherent than the creatures of the mind; but this is no argument that they exist without the mind. They are also less dependent on the spirit, or thinking substance which perceives them, in that they are excited by the will of another and more powerful spirit: yet still they are ideas, and certainly no idea, whether faint or strong, can exist otherwise than in a mind perceiving it."

(Berkeley, George. Principles of Human Knowledge. 1710. Part 1, §§30+33)
/QUOTE

But how can an immaterial soul lacking sense organs and a brain have any "ideas of sense" or sensations?
phenomenal_graffiti wrote: January 31st, 2020, 3:43 pm
Consul wrote: January 31st, 2020, 11:00 amNo, "physical" doesn't mean that. If it did, reductive physicalism would be false by definition—which it isn't and shouldn't be.
Really? "Physical" doesn't mean that? What, pray tell, is the "physical" if it is not something that is not conscious experience? In the mythology that brains create consciousness, consciousness only exists if there are brains as every instance of consciousness requires and is accountable to some function of the brain. If "physical" includes subjective experience, is there subjective experience (the fact or act of experiencing and that which is experienced during the act) that does not require the brain, or that exists independent of brains?
According to physicalism, experiences are physical occurrences. Whether their subjects or substrates are or must be physical objects with brains is a question that needn't be answered in the affirmative by physicalists. For example, there's nothing inherently antiphysicalistic about ascribing subjective experience to brainless plants as long as plant experiences are regarded as physical or physiological occurrences.
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Re: Existence only appears or manifests....

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phenomenal_graffiti wrote: January 31st, 2020, 3:26 pm Fair enough. 'Something theoretical' is something that is not part of what one is experiencing 'now', but an idea about the nature of things one concludes is true or false according to whether or not one happens to believe in the objective existence of the idea. Thus a phenomenal tree is a tree that 'i (phenomenally) observe....that is 'part of my phenomenal experience'.

If a phenomenal tree is a tree that 'i (phenomenally) observe....that is 'part of my phenomenal experience', this does not falsify my claim that a phenomenal tree is a visual experience of a tree that is the visual version or mode of subjective experience. This is not 'something theoretical', not a though about 'what's really going on', but a fact of experience independent of theory.

The phenomenal appearance of a tree, therefore, indeed seems to be that of a tree, but the appearance only occurs to a conscious being. As the conscious being, using the mythology that the brain creates consciousness as support observes only a consciousness-composed tree generated by neurons and not a non-consciousness composed tree not created by the brain, the phenomenal appearance of a tree that seems only to be a tree is composed of consciousness. This is not theoretical, if brains create consciousness.
You're making this way too complicated, and in doing so, you're ignoring something I'm saying.

Phenomenally, there's often just a tree. There's often no "This tree is part of my phenomenal experience" or "I am experiencing a tree" or anything like that.

You're not actually addressing what I'm saying there. Keep it simpler so that you address what I'm saying.
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Re: Existence only appears or manifests....

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Phenomenally, there's often just a tree. There's often no "This tree is part of my phenomenal experience" or "I am experiencing a tree" or anything like that.
Most when observing a tree observe a tree without thinking 'this tree is part of my phenomenal experience' or 'I am experiencing a tree'. But this is simply the usual thought process of a person when observing a tree without thinking to much into it, as you say, "thinking theoretically".

I think I'm a bit confused about the 'phenomenally, there's often just a tree' part, reading it as 'we can perceive a tree that is not anyone's experience of a tree' when this is probably logically impossible.
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Re: Existence only appears or manifests....

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Consul:
"The ideas of sense are more strong, lively, and distinct than those of the imagination; they have likewise a steadiness, order, and coherence, and are not excited at random, as those which are the effects of human wills often are, but in a regular train or series, the admirable connexion whereof sufficiently testifies the wisdom and benevolence of its Author. Now the set rules or established methods, wherein the mind we depend on excites in us the ieas of sense, are called the Laws of Nature: and these we learn by experience, which teaches us that such and such ideas are attended with such and such other ideas, in the ordinary course of things."

"The ideas imprinted on the senses by the Author of Nature are called real things: and those excited in the imagination being less regular, vivid and constant, are more properly termed ideas, or images of things, which they copy and represent. But then our sensations, be they never so vivid and distinct, are nevertheless ideas, that is, they exist in the mind, or are perceived by it, as truly as the ideas of its own framing. The ideas of sense are allowed to have more reality in them, that is, to be more strong, orderly, and coherent than the creatures of the mind; but this is no argument that they exist without the mind. They are also less dependent on the spirit, or thinking substance which perceives them, in that they are excited by the will of another and more powerful spirit: yet still they are ideas, and certainly no idea, whether faint or strong, can exist otherwise than in a mind perceiving it."

(Berkeley, George. Principles of Human Knowledge. 1710. Part 1, §§30+33)
/QUOTE

But how can an immaterial soul lacking sense organs and a brain have any "ideas of sense" or sensations?
Berkeley, be separating 'ideas of sense' from 'ideas of thought' then going on to say sense is ultimately still a property of 'mind' all in service of a denial of physical matter and energy can mean that sensations to us are experiences, but to God they are the idea of we having that sensation prior to our experiencing that sensation. This is (probably) what Berkeley intends when he mentions 'the Author of Nature'. That is, God has an idea or thought of you feeling something, probably in the eternity before you were born, and you then feel exactly as God knew or imagined you would eons later, or something like that. This is (probably?) when Berkeley meant in delineating 'idea of sense' from 'experience of sense'.

His belief that experiences of sense or sensory experience is nonetheless a thing of the mind is foggier IMO but 'mind' may mean or be used by him in two senses: (1) 'mind'=mental processes of thought and imagination independent of sensory perception; (2) 'mind'=subjective experience itself, whether thought and imagination or sensory perception.

To answer your question regarding immaterial souls having sensory experiences (without sense organs), it's simply a matter of things just existing a certain way simply by existing in that way. That is, if one moves away from Judeo-Christian thought of a supernatural soul within a physical body, one suspects that if God exists, God and everyone else is is just made up of subjective experience, not physical matter and energy nor supernatural spirit. The ancients may have thought there might be supernatural spirit, but there is only evidence of the existence of subjective experience.

Subjective experience in the absence or non-existence of physical matter and energy would just be existence taking the form of the subjective experience of a person having sensory sensations. The visual and tactile experience of sensory organs, in this case, would not truly indicate the existence of physical doppelgangers of the sensory organs, but simply a form existence takes, showing us sensory organs and indeed a brain, that do not truly exist as non-experiential doppelgangers in the external world but are inventions made up of one's subjective experience that do not objectively exist or function outside one's consciousness.

Really? "Physical" doesn't mean that? What, pray tell, is the "physical" if it is not something that is not conscious experience? In the mythology that brains create consciousness, consciousness only exists if there are brains as every instance of consciousness requires and is accountable to some function of the brain. If "physical" includes subjective experience, is there subjective experience (the fact or act of experiencing and that which is experienced during the act) that does not require the brain, or that exists independent of brains?
According to physicalism, experiences are physical occurrences. Whether their subjects or substrates are or must be physical objects with brains is a question that needn't be answered in the affirmative by physicalists. For example, there's nothing inherently antiphysicalistic about ascribing subjective experience to brainless plants as long as plant experiences are regarded as physical or physiological occurrences.
But what are 'physical occurrences'? Are plant experiences (and by pertinent extension, human experiences) 'physical' in the sense that 'physical' also means subjective experience and that which is not subjective experience?

As I use the term 'physical', I am separating subjective experience: the act or fact of experiencing from that which is not experiencing, or not a person experiencing or having experiences or the substance or existence of experiencing. I should hope the term is no so rigid as to forbid or prevent such distinction. My point is that given the evidence, existence only appears in the form of a person that experiences, and has never (and probably, can never) appear in the form of a non-person not having experiences.
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Re: Existence only appears or manifests....

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phenomenal_graffiti wrote: January 31st, 2020, 9:33 pm
Phenomenally, there's often just a tree. There's often no "This tree is part of my phenomenal experience" or "I am experiencing a tree" or anything like that.
Most when observing a tree observe a tree without thinking 'this tree is part of my phenomenal experience' or 'I am experiencing a tree'. But this is simply the usual thought process of a person when observing a tree without thinking to much into it, as you say, "thinking theoretically".

I think I'm a bit confused about the 'phenomenally, there's often just a tree' part, reading it as 'we can perceive a tree that is not anyone's experience of a tree' when this is probably logically impossible.
"Phenomenal" is a term that denotes what appears, as it appears, adding nothing else to that other than the appearance.

So, the question is that when phenomenally there's just a tree--it's simply the case, appearance-wise, that a tree appears, and it's not the case, in terms of any appearance that "This tree is part of my phenomenal experience" or "I am experiencing a tree" or anything like that--then how do we arrive at "This is simply the usual thought process . . ." That's not what appears (at the time of the tree appearance), it's something else. How do we arrive at that something else?
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Re: Existence only appears or manifests....

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phenomenal_graffiti wrote: January 31st, 2020, 10:05 pm
Consul wrote: January 31st, 2020, 5:07 pm But how can an immaterial soul lacking sense organs and a brain have any "ideas of sense" or sensations?
Berkeley, be separating 'ideas of sense' from 'ideas of thought' then going on to say sense is ultimately still a property of 'mind' all in service of a denial of physical matter and energy can mean that sensations to us are experiences, but to God they are the idea of we having that sensation prior to our experiencing that sensation. This is (probably) what Berkeley intends when he mentions 'the Author of Nature'. That is, God has an idea or thought of you feeling something, probably in the eternity before you were born, and you then feel exactly as God knew or imagined you would eons later, or something like that. This is (probably?) when Berkeley meant in delineating 'idea of sense' from 'experience of sense'.
To have a sense-idea (or sense-impression) is to have a sense-experience, since it depends for its being on being experienced.

According to Berkeley, one difference between our sense-ideas and our mental images is that the former have an external cause, viz. God, and aren't under our voluntary control.
phenomenal_graffiti wrote: January 31st, 2020, 10:05 pmHis belief that experiences of sense or sensory experience is nonetheless a thing of the mind is foggier IMO but 'mind' may mean or be used by him in two senses: (1) 'mind'=mental processes of thought and imagination independent of sensory perception; (2) 'mind'=subjective experience itself, whether thought and imagination or sensory perception.
By "mind" Berkeley means a mental/spiritual substance, which is the subject of ideas.

QUOTE
"Besides all that endless variety of ideas or objects of knowledge, there is likewise something which knows or perceives them; and exercises divers operations, as willing, imagining, remembering about them. This perceiving, active being is what I call mind, spirit, soul or myself. By which words I do not denote any one of my ideas, but a thing entirely distinct from them, wherein they exist, or, which is the same thing, whereby they are perceived; for the existence of an idea consists in being perceived."

(Berkeley, George. Principles of Human Knowledge. 1710. Part 1, §2)
/QUOTE
phenomenal_graffiti wrote: January 31st, 2020, 10:05 pmTo answer your question regarding immaterial souls having sensory experiences (without sense organs), it's simply a matter of things just existing a certain way simply by existing in that way. That is, if one moves away from Judeo-Christian thought of a supernatural soul within a physical body, one suspects that if God exists, God and everyone else is is just made up of subjective experience, not physical matter and energy nor supernatural spirit. The ancients may have thought there might be supernatural spirit, but there is only evidence of the existence of subjective experience.

Subjective experience in the absence or non-existence of physical matter and energy would just be existence taking the form of the subjective experience of a person having sensory sensations. The visual and tactile experience of sensory organs, in this case, would not truly indicate the existence of physical doppelgangers of the sensory organs, but simply a form existence takes, showing us sensory organs and indeed a brain, that do not truly exist as non-experiential doppelgangers in the external world but are inventions made up of one's subjective experience that do not objectively exist or function outside one's consciousness.
According to Berkeley, both the divine soul and the human souls are mental substances that have ideas (or experiences) without being made up of them. He denies that "you are only a system of floating ideas, without any substance to support them" (Berkeley); so his view is different from Hume's, according to whom you "are nothing but a bundle or collection of different perceptions" (Hume).

According to Berkeley, all bodies, all brains, and all sense-organs are nothing but complexes of sense-ideas in immaterial minds. However, an immaterial mind (soul/spirit) is a simple (partless) and zero-dimensional thing, being a mathematical point with psychological properties but without any (intrinsic) physical properties. (A nonphysical soul might have extrinsic physical properties such as being located at some space-point.)

I think Berkeley's (and all other substance dualists') basic problem is that the very concept of an immaterial (body-, brain-, and sense-organ-less) subject or substrate of sensations makes no coherent sense, especially as psychological sentience is known to have originated evolutionarily in pre-experiential physiological sensitivity.

QUOTE
"Since our inner experiences consist of reproductions and combinations of sensory impressions, the concept of a soul without a body seems to me to be empty and devoid of meaning."

(Einstein, Albert. "Letter from February 5, 1921." Quoted in: Dukas, Helen, and Banesh Hoffmann, eds. Albert Einstein:The Human Side; New Glimpses from his Archives. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1979. p. 40)
/QUOTE
phenomenal_graffiti wrote: January 31st, 2020, 10:05 pmBut what are 'physical occurrences'? Are plant experiences (and by pertinent extension, human experiences) 'physical' in the sense that 'physical' also means subjective experience and that which is not subjective experience?
In my understanding, an entity is physical if and only if it belongs to the ontology of physics either directly or indirectly by being (ultimately) constituted or produced by nothing but entities directly belonging to the ontology of physics. Accordingly, subjective experiences are physical entities iff they are constituted or produced by nothing but entities of physics.
phenomenal_graffiti wrote: January 31st, 2020, 10:05 pmAs I use the term 'physical', I am separating subjective experience: the act or fact of experiencing from that which is not experiencing, or not a person experiencing or having experiences or the substance or existence of experiencing. I should hope the term is no so rigid as to forbid or prevent such distinction. My point is that given the evidence, existence only appears in the form of a person that experiences, and has never (and probably, can never) appear in the form of a non-person not having experiences.
The distinction between the mental/experiential and the nonmental/nonexperiential doesn't correspond per definitionem to the one between the mental/experiential and the physical, or the one between the nonphysical and the physical, since physicalists hold that the mental/experiential is part of the physical, such that the distinction between the mental/experiential and the material/physical is nothing more than an intraphysical one between the psychophysical and the non-psychophysical.

My point is that antiphysicalism mustn't be built into the meaning of the concept of mentality/experientiality, since dualism would then be true by definition. Whether dualism is true is not a matter of semantics but a substantive metaphysical issue.

QUOTE
"We have a tendency to read 'nonphysical' when we see the word 'mental', and think 'nonmental' when we see the word 'physical'. This has the effect of making the idea of physical reduction of the mental a simple verbal contradiction, abetting the misguided idea that physical reduction of something we cherish as a mental item, like thought or feeling, would turn it into something other than what it is. But this would be the case only if by 'physical' we meant 'nonmental'. We should not prejudge the issue of mind-body reduction by building irreducibility into the meanings of our words. When we consider the question whether the mental can be physically reduced, it is not necessary—even if this could be done—to begin with general definitions of 'mental' and 'physical'; rather, the substantive question that we are asking, or should be asking, is whether or not things like belief, desire, emotion, and sensation are reducible to physical properties and processes. We can understand this question and intelligently debate it, without subsuming these items under some general conception of what it is for something to be mental. If 'mental' is understood to imply 'nonphysical', it would then be an open question whether or not belief, desire, sensation, perception, and the rest are mental in that sense. And this question would replace the original question of their physical reducibility. We cannot evade or trivialize this question by a simple verbal ploy."

(Kim, Jaegwon. "The Mind-Body Problem at Century's Turn." In The Future of Philosophy, edited by Brian Leiter, 129-152. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. p. 138)
/QUOTE
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Re: Existence only appears or manifests....

Post by Consul »

phenomenal_graffiti wrote: February 3rd, 2020, 11:31 am
Consul wrote: February 3rd, 2020, 1:09 amNonexperiences are perceptually presented to me through their experiential appearances in me.
While I disagree with the manner of Sculptor's response I must agree with (and share the ardor of) his sentiment.

Think about your statement:

"Nonexperiences are perceptually presented to me through their experiential appearances in me."

To paraphase (?): "Non-experiences are themselves in the external world, not made of my or anyone's experience, yet can appear in me in the form of my experience, while still remaining not my experience in the external world' (as non-experiences presumably do not cease to exist when, then come back into existence following, making an experiential appearance in a person."

This doesn't make any sense. Non-experience is simply that: 'not experience'. How can 'not experience', as it is not experience, make an experiential appearance, given that it is not experience?

That would require 'not experience' to magically transform into 'experience'. To experientially appear in a person, some part of non-experience must magically transform into the experience of that person, or the person cannot experience the non-experience or non-experiential object and event.
My statement is not to be interpreted as meaning that the objects of perception, the perceptually appearing nonexperiences become experiences, because there is certainly a difference between appearances qua perceptual experiences and the nonexperiences they are appearances of. When I see a tree, the perceptual process involves an externally, objectively existing tree and an internally, subjectively existing sensory appearance or impression of it, and there's no magical transformation of the one into the other. I perceive the tree through the sensory appearance or impression of it which I experience. To sensorily perceive something is to experience a sensory appearance or impression of it that perceptually presents it to me.
phenomenal_graffiti wrote: February 3rd, 2020, 11:31 amWhy?

Because in order for you to experience something, that which you experience must be made up of the material substance not of something that is not experience at all, but of your experience of it. If something is not your experience or materialistically made up of your experience, how can you experience it if it is something that is not your experience? Shouldn't something be your experience in order for you to experience it?

Why use something that is not your experience to explain your experience? How can something that is not your experience tell your experience what it is like and worse, cause your experience to assume it's "form"?

It seems that something that is not experience at all cannot be experienced as it is...well...it is not experience. You can only experience experience, you cannot experience non-experience (as non-experience is not experience).
Strictly speaking, you're right insofar as you cannot experience nonexperiences; but you're wrong in equating experiencing with perceiving, because it doesn't follow that you cannot perceive nonexperiences. Again, idealists make the fundamental mistake of regarding experiential contents (sensations, sense-impressions, sense-appearances) as perceptual objects. (They become perceptual objects only in the case of introspection, but I'm talking about perception qua extrospection here.)

Epistemological skepticism about external, nonmental/nonexperiential reality is rooted in that false idealistic ontology of perception, because if the subjective contents of perception are its (direct) objects, then there is an opaque "veil of perception" separating us epistemically from nonmental reality—if there is any such reality at all, which is denied by reductive mentalists such as Berkeley, who don't even acknowledge a Kantian realm of imperceptible nonmental noumena.

Anti-idealists agree that conscious sensory perception essentially has some subjective sense-content which is experienced by the perceiver, but what the perceiver perceives is not the experienced content but what is perceptually presented to her/him through the content qua perceptually transparent medium of perception.
phenomenal_graffiti wrote: February 3rd, 2020, 11:31 amThere is a mythological background to the belief that experience experiences that which is not experience at all: the "brains behind the outfit" so to speak:

This mythology holds there was a time when consciousness did not exist, as brains did not exist. When brains, and therefore consciousness did not exist, there must have been something that pre-dated consciousness (first-person subjective experience) and existed in the universal non-existence of consciousness in lieu of consciousness or subjective experience. Bertrand Russell referred to this "whatever" as 'matter; George Berkeley referred to is as 'unperceived substance'.
This "mythology" is what Wilfrid Sellars calls "the scientific image" of the world.
phenomenal_graffiti wrote: February 3rd, 2020, 11:31 amBut given that existence only appears, and has only ever appeared in the form of a person and that which the person experiences, it does not follow that we should first, dream up, and second, rely upon, that which is not first-person subjective experience to derive subjective experience.
Introspection, i.e. the nonsensory perception of the contents of one's mind or consciousness, is evolutionarily preceded by extrospection, i.e. the sensory perception of nonmental things or events. (I subsume the inner perception of one's body, i.e. interoception and proprioception, under extrospection.) All animal species are capable of extrospection, but only very few of them are capable of introspection. What matters most for fitness and survival is extrospection with its nonmental objects. From the perspective of evolutionary biology, there are no good reasons to abandon our instinctive belief in a (perceptible) external, nonmental reality. We had been aware of nonmental reality long before we became aware of our mental reality.

QUOTE:
"Of course it is not by argument that we originally come by our belief in an independent external world. We find this belief ready in ourselves as soon as we begin to reflect: it is what may be called an instinctive belief. We should never have been led to question this belief but for the fact that, at any rate in the case of sight, it seems as if the sense-datum itself were instinctively believed to be the independent object, whereas argument shows that the object cannot be identical with the sense-datum. This discovery, however—which is not at all paradoxical in the case of taste and smell and sound, and only slightly so in the case of touch—leaves undiminished our instinctive belief that there are objects corresponding to our sense-data. Since this belief does not lead to any difficulties, but on the contrary tends to simplify and systematize our account of our experiences, there seems no good reason for rejecting it. We may therefore admit—though with a slight doubt derived from dreams—that the external world does really exist, and is not wholly dependent for its existence upon our continuing to perceive it."

(Russell, Bertrand. The Problems of Philosophy. 1912. Reprint, Mineola, NY: Dover, 1999. pp. 14-5)
/QUOTE
phenomenal_graffiti wrote: February 3rd, 2020, 11:31 amNon-experience is make-believe, entirely made up. It must be, as we have never had evidence of something that is not first-person subjective experience. As for propositional knowledge, believing in non-experience, simply by believing in non-experience, certainly does not make non-experience justifiably true as we only have evidence of the existence of subjective experience. One would simply be saying non-experience is justifiably true by justified true belief simply because one wants it to be true. After all, why should something be justifiably true simply by believing in it, if it is not or is not made up of subjective experience? What is non-experience even like, given we only have evidence of subjective experience as the only thing in existence that appears or demonstrates that it exists is subjective experience?
QUOTE:
"Doesn't one need reasons for doubt?"

(L. Wittgenstein, On Certainty, §122)
/QUOTE

I see no good reasons to doubt my instinctive belief in physical realism and many good reasons not to doubt it. External-world skepticism arises from a false ontology of perception that encages subjects in their minds, turning them into autists and solipsists, who aren't aware of anything but the subjective contents of their minds.

That empirical evidence consists of experiences doesn't mean that it is evidence for nothing but experiences. If this were true, the respective subject matters of all other empirical sciences such as physics would have to be reduced to the subject matter of psychology, or to that part of it which is empiriology/phenomenology (the psychology of subjective experience/appearance), since psychology deals with behavior and the nonconscious (cognitive) mind too.

The nonpsychological empirical sciences tell or at least try to tell us what nonmental/nonexperiential reality is like, and they're not chasing a ghost by presupposing that there is such a reality.
phenomenal_graffiti wrote: February 3rd, 2020, 11:31 amIt follows, then, that non-experience is entirely made up in response to disbelief and incredulity at the possibility that first-person subjective experience may be the only thing that exists, and the only thing that has ever existed.
Reductive mentalism à la Berkeley may be an empirically irrefutable logical possibility, but it's nonetheless breathtakingly implausible to the point of absurdity.

QUOTE:
"By a “silly” theory I mean one which may be held at the time when one is talking or writing professionally, but which only an inmate of a lunatic asylum would think of carrying into daily life. …It must not be supposed that the men who maintain these theories and believe that they believe them are “silly” people. Only very acute and learned men could have thought of anything so odd or defended anything so preposterous against the continual protests of common-sense."

(Broad, C. D. The Mind and its Place in Nature. London: Kegan Paul, 1925. pp. 5-6)
/QUOTE
phenomenal_graffiti wrote: February 3rd, 2020, 11:31 amThere is certainly no good reason to believe that non-experience can appear in the form of something experienced, or that experience is obligated to "assume the form" of something that is not experience. Whence cometh the obligation? The obligation is made up. The process is made up, make-believe. Why? Because we have no evidence of the existence of non-experience, as it cannot be evidenced, as it is not subjective experience.

Even if one entertains the notion of non-experience for sake of argument, any communciation or causal connection between non-experience and experience would require an ad hoc, arbitrary magic (given that y does not follow from and cannot be existentially and substantially predicted from x) in which non-experience stops being non-experience to inexplicably and magically become someone experiencing and that which the person experiences; not-experience "somehow" stops being something that is not experience to suddenly be someone experiencing and that which the person experiences. Why should this even be thought to be true?
We do have experiential evidence for nonexperiences, especially as experiential evidence isn't evidence for itself but for something else.

Again, the perception of nonexperiences doesn't require a magical transformation of them into experiences, or vice versa. Nonexperiences are perceptually presented to experiencing subjects without being transformed or transported into them. All that is required for the perceptual presentation of nonexperiences "out there" is the experiencing of sensations "in here" that function as appearances of nonexperiences. And what you experience is not what you perceive! The extrospection of nonexperiences is one thing, and the introspection of experiences is another thing.
phenomenal_graffiti wrote: February 3rd, 2020, 11:31 amInstead.....

Rather that fancifully imagine the existence of something that has never and, it is safe to say, can never appear, that is the existential opposite of the only form in which existence has and has only appeared, it's easier and more logical that the only thing that exists, the only thing that has ever existed, is first-person subjective experience.

Much more difficult, but still more logical than non-experience, is the idea that the only thing that has ever existed are persons.

More difficult, but still more logical than non-experience, is the idea that all persons exist within the mind of a single, external Person.
If by "logical" you mean "reasonable" or "resulting from sound reasoning", I disagree completely. For, to repeat myself, (ontologically) reductive mentalism à la Berkeley is based on an incorrect ontology of perception, according to which the subjective sense-content of perception is its (only) object, such that we never perceive anything but our own subjective experiences or appearances: Perception is the perception of psychological phenomena, and there aren't even any imperceptible nonpsychological noumena.

By the way, apart from the question of whether there is a coherently intelligible concept of a mind/soul/spirit qua mental substance, Berkeley denies that we can have sensory ideas or percepts of ourselves or other subjects as mental substances, so there is a sense in which we and they (including God) qua subjects of mentality are noumenal entities in his worldview.

QUOTE:
"A spirit is an active being. It is simple, in the sense that it doesn’t have parts. When thought of as something that perceives ideas, it is called ‘the understanding’, and when thought of as producing ideas or doing things with them, it is called ‘the will’. But understanding and will are different powers that a spirit has; they aren’t parts of it. It follows that no-one can form an idea of a soul or spirit. We have seen in 25 that all ideas are passive and inert, and therefore no idea can represent an active thing, which is what a spirit is, because no idea can resemble an active thing. If you think about it a little, you’ll see clearly that it is absolutely impossible to have an idea that is like an active cause of the change of ideas. The nature of spirit (i.e. that which acts) is such that it cannot itself be perceived; all we can do is to perceive the effects it produces. To perceive a spirit would be to have an idea of it, that is, an idea that resembles it; and I have shown that no idea can resemble a spirit because ideas are passive and spirits active. If you think I may be wrong about this, you should look in on yourself and try to form the idea of a power or of an active being, that is, a thing that has power. To do this, you need to have ideas of two principal powers called ‘will’ and ‘understanding’, these ideas being distinct from each other and from a third idea of substance or being in general, which is called ‘soul’ or ‘spirit’; and you must also have a relative notion of spirit’s supporting or being the subject of those two powers. Some people say that they have all that; but it seems to me that the words ‘will’ and ‘spirit’ don’t stand for distinct ideas, or indeed for any idea at all, but for something very different from ideas. Because this ‘something’ is an agent, it cannot resemble or be represented by any idea whatsoever. Though it must be admitted that we have some notion of soul, spirit, and operations of the mind such as willing, loving and hating, in that we understand the meanings of those words."

(Berkeley, George. Principles of Human Knowledge. 1710. Part 1, §27)
/QUOTE
"We may philosophize well or ill, but we must philosophize." – Wilfrid Sellars
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phenomenal_graffiti
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Re: Existence only appears or manifests....

Post by phenomenal_graffiti »

Consul:
My statement is not to be interpreted as meaning that the objects of perception, the perceptually appearing nonexperiences become experiences, because there is certainly a difference between appearances qua perceptual experiences and the nonexperiences they are appearances of.
Or, the perception is simply the manner in which existence manifests and the only thing that exists, such that the non-experiences the perception is purported an appearance of does not exist.
When I see a tree, the perceptual process involves an externally, objectively existing tree
The external, objectively existing tree, if it consists of something that is not subjective experience, may not exist as it, being made up of or consisting of something that is not subjective experience, cannot logically or rationally have anything to do with subjective experience beyond magical transformation or the existence magic of creation ex nihilo.
and an internally, subjectively existing sensory appearance or impression of it,
"it", unless made up or consisting of external, objective subjective experience as opposed to something that is not subjective experience at all, may not exist
and there's no magical transformation of the one into the other.
So we agree there are two trees rather than a single tree in the mythology that brains create consciousness and the ontology it implies or supports: there is a tree composed or consisting of subjective experience created by the brain, and an external tree not created by the brain. Beyond the mythology, the only logical or rational way the external tree can exist and have anything to do with the secondary, perceived tree is if the external tree itself is composed of subjective experience and controversially, the subjective experience of an external being that transmits or shares the substance of its subjective experience with the secondary, perceiving subject.
I perceive the tree through the sensory appearance or impression of it which I experience. To sensorily perceive something is to experience a sensory appearance or impression of it that perceptually presents it to me.
Sure, if the sensory appearance or impression of it you experience is transmitted or inherited from the subjective experience of another, external person.
Strictly speaking, you're right insofar as you cannot experience nonexperiences; but you're wrong in equating experiencing with perceiving,
Perceiving is experiencing. It's all experience in seven forms (the five senses plus thought and emotion). It doesn't follow how one can perceive without the experiencing that one is perceiving.
because it doesn't follow that you cannot perceive nonexperiences.
It does when existence only manifests in the form of one's experience, and non-experience, being something that is not experience and specifically, not your experience, cannot be experienced (perceived) as it is not experience.
Again, idealists make the fundamental mistake of regarding experiential contents (sensations, sense-impressions, sense-appearances) as perceptual objects. (They become perceptual objects only in the case of introspection, but I'm talking about perception qua extrospection here.)
There is only evidence of the existence of sensations, thoughts, and emotions. These are the only perceptual objects that exist. There is no evidence of the existence of objects consisting of non-experience.
Epistemological skepticism about external, nonmental/nonexperiential reality is rooted in that false idealistic ontology of perception,
It's not necessarily false. Given the evidence (that existence only appears in the form of a person and that which the person experiences), it may be true, and is probably more likely than nonmental/nonexperiential "reality"
because if the subjective contents of perception are its (direct) objects, then there is an opaque "veil of perception" separating us epistemically from nonmental reality—if there is any such reality at all, which is denied by reductive mentalists such as Berkeley, who don't even acknowledge a Kantian realm of imperceptible nonmental noumena.
In truth, we don't need nonmental noumena or a nonmental reality. To ground human experience, there is logically only mental noumena and a mental external reality in the form of an external Person or persons.
Anti-idealists agree that conscious sensory perception essentially has some subjective sense-content which is experienced by the perceiver, but what the perceiver perceives is not the experienced content but what is perceptually presented to her/him through the content qua perceptually transparent medium of perception.
And that which is presented from the external world can only logically be the subjective experiences of an external being or beings.
phenomenal_graffiti wrote: ↑Mon Feb 03, 2020 10:31 am

There is a mythological background to the belief that experience experiences that which is not experience at all: the "brains behind the outfit" so to speak:

This mythology holds there was a time when consciousness did not exist, as brains did not exist. When brains, and therefore consciousness did not exist, there must have been something that pre-dated consciousness (first-person subjective experience) and existed in the universal non-existence of consciousness in lieu of consciousness or subjective experience. Bertrand Russell referred to this "whatever" as 'matter; George Berkeley referred to is as 'unperceived substance'.
This "mythology" is what Wilfrid Sellars calls "the scientific image" of the world.
Ultimately an act of make-believe. No different, really, than J.K. Rowlin's imagination of the Harry Potter fictional universe.
Introspection, i.e. the nonsensory perception of the contents of one's mind or consciousness, is evolutionarily preceded by extrospection, i.e. the sensory perception of nonmental things or events. (I subsume the inner perception of one's body, i.e. interoception and proprioception, under extrospection.)
Nonmental things or events probably do not exist, and cannot logically have any relation to mental things and events, as there must be a transformation from nonmental to mental for such a relation to magically exist.
All animal species are capable of extrospection, but only very few of them are capable of introspection. What matters most for fitness and survival is extrospection with its nonmental objects.
If external objects are not themselves made up of subjective experience that can take from itself to become the subjective experience of a person perceiving external subjective experience, it has no logical relation to subjective experience and may not exist.
From the perspective of evolutionary biology, there are no good reasons to abandon our instinctive belief in a (perceptible) external, nonmental reality. We had been aware of nonmental reality long before we became aware of our mental reality.
We can only experience and be aware of subjective experience, not that which is not subjective experience. It's logically impossible for subjective experience to experience something that is not experience.
QUOTE:
"Of course it is not by argument that we originally come by our belief in an independent external world. We find this belief ready in ourselves as soon as we begin to reflect: it is what may be called an instinctive belief.
If one denies solipsism or the concept that human consciousness exists in a psychic vacuum, an independent external world, albeit one that consists of still more subjective experience rather than that which is not or that is other than subjective experience, instinctively follows.
We should never have been led to question this belief but for the fact that, at any rate in the case of sight, it seems as if the sense-datum itself were instinctively believed to be the independent object, whereas argument shows that the object cannot be identical with the sense-datum.
Given that we experience only the sense-datum and have no evidence of the existence of the independent object, it does not follow how one can know the sense-object is not the only thing that exists (of course I believe it doesn't, as I believe in an external Person and persons from which our senses derive).
This discovery, however—which is not at all paradoxical in the case of taste and smell and sound, and only slightly so in the case of touch—leaves undiminished our instinctive belief that there are objects corresponding to our sense-data.
The instinctive belief is rational only if the objects corresponding to our sense-data are themselves sense-data within the mind of an external Being or beings.
Since this belief does not lead to any difficulties, but on the contrary tends to simplify and systematize our account of our experiences, there seems no good reason for rejecting it. We may therefore admit—though with a slight doubt derived from dreams—that the external world does really exist, and is not wholly dependent for its existence upon our continuing to perceive it."
(Russell, Bertrand. The Problems of Philosophy. 1912. Reprint, Mineola, NY: Dover, 1999. pp. 14-5)
QUOTE[/quote]

This is true, but only if the external world is a subjectively experiencing person or persons, as opposed to something other than or that is not subjective experience itself.
I see no good reasons to doubt my instinctive belief in physical realism and many good reasons not to doubt it.
External world skepticism in my case in terms of the existence of non-experience (something that is not or that is other than subjective experience).
External-world skepticism arises from a false ontology
How can you know its false? Because you don't believe in it?
of perception that encages subjects in their minds, turning them into autists and solipsists, who aren't aware of anything but the subjective contents of their minds.
We aren't aware of (i.e. we cannot experience) anything but the subjective content of one's first-person subjective experience (I try not to use 'mind' as this seems to imply the exclusive existence of nonsensory introspection).
That empirical evidence consists of experiences doesn't mean that it is evidence for nothing but experiences.
How can it be evidence for something that isn't experience at all, given that empirical evidence is the only thing that manifests, and manifests only in the form of experience? How can that which is not experience come up with experience, that experience might depict it? This would require the inane magicks of existential transformation or creation ex nihilo.
If this were true, the respective subject matters of all other empirical sciences such as physics would have to be reduced to the subject matter of psychology, or to that part of it which is empiriology/phenomenology (the psychology of subjective experience/appearance), since psychology deals with behavior and the nonconscious (cognitive) mind too.
True.
The nonpsychological empirical sciences tell or at least try to tell us what nonmental/nonexperiential reality is like, and they're not chasing a ghost by presupposing that there is such a reality.
Try to tell us what nonmental/nonexperiential reality is like, as it believes in the existence of nonmental/nonexperiential reality, which probably does not exist or at worst, has no rational or logical connection to experiential reality as it is, well, not experience, as you need experience to create or give rise to experience.
Reductive mentalism à la Berkeley may be an empirically irrefutable logical possibility, but it's nonetheless breathtakingly implausible to the point of absurdity.
Really? It's more plausible than getting experience from something that is other than or that is not experience, or experience being able to depict something that is not itself, or something that is other than or that is not experience magically informing experience as to what it is like. It's only 'implausible to the point of absurdity' because you don't believe it, not because it is truly implausible.
QUOTE:
"By a “silly” theory I mean one which may be held at the time when one is talking or writing professionally, but which only an inmate of a lunatic asylum would think of carrying into daily life. …It must not be supposed that the men who maintain these theories and believe that they believe them are “silly” people. Only very acute and learned men could have thought of anything so odd or defended anything so preposterous against the continual protests of common-sense."

(Broad, C. D. The Mind and its Place in Nature. London: Kegan Paul, 1925. pp. 5-6)
Thanks for the compliment, Mr. Broad, but something other than or that is not subjective experience having anything to do with the existence and content of subjective experience runs counter to common sense.
phenomenal_graffiti wrote: ↑Mon Feb 03, 2020 10:31 am
There is certainly no good reason to believe that non-experience can appear in the form of something experienced, or that experience is obligated to "assume the form" of something that is not experience. Whence cometh the obligation? The obligation is made up. The process is made up, make-believe. Why? Because we have no evidence of the existence of non-experience, as it cannot be evidenced, as it is not subjective experience.

Even if one entertains the notion of non-experience for sake of argument, any communciation or causal connection between non-experience and experience would require an ad hoc, arbitrary magic (given that y does not follow from and cannot be existentially and substantially predicted from x) in which non-experience stops being non-experience to inexplicably and magically become someone experiencing and that which the person experiences; not-experience "somehow" stops being something that is not experience to suddenly be someone experiencing and that which the person experiences. Why should this even be thought to be true?
We do have experiential evidence for nonexperiences,


Er, we can't have experiential evidence for non-experience, as experience can only experience itself. Non-experience, as it is not experience, cannot be experienced, and as such, cannot logically have anything to do with the content or existence of experience.
especially as experiential evidence isn't evidence for itself but for something else.
This is true. If solipsism is false experiential evidence isn't evidence for itself (though it can only experience itself) but propositionally true evidence for the existence of more subjective experience in the external world, perhaps the subjective experience of an external person or persons.
Again, the perception of nonexperiences doesn't require a magical transformation of them into experiences, or vice versa. Nonexperiences are perceptually presented to experiencing subjects without being transformed or transported into them.


They would have to be transformed into experience, as nonexperience isn't experience, and must somehow arrive at experience in order to be experienced. And...nonexperience may not exist.
All that is required for the perceptual presentation of nonexperiences "out there" is the experiencing of sensations "in here" that function as appearances of nonexperiences.
But one is only believing that sensations "in here" function as appearances of nonexperiences, which may not and do not necessarily exist, as they are something other than experiences, that constantly reveal they exist.
And what you experience is not what you perceive! The extrospection of nonexperiences is one thing, and the introspection of experiences is another thing.
You're asserting the existence of something that doesn't necessarily, and probably doesn't exist as though it necessarily and irrefutably exists, but nonexperience may not exist as there simply is no evidence for its existence, and you can't use experience for evidence as, well, experience is not nonexperience. One is not the other, and one cannot logically have anything to do with the other unless the one is the other. You believe nonexperiences exist, but you cannot provide evidence for their existence as existence can only appear as a person, only appears as subjective experience.

Nonexperiences and extrospection of nonexperiences are entirely fictional entities, acts of the imagination that you unquestionably believe exist. But if something is not subjective experience, it cannot rationally have anything to do with subjective experience because it is not subjective experience. We can't perceive something that is not subjective experience, as it is not subjective experience and thus cannot compose or be made up of the substance of perception itself, which is subjective experience. When one perceives, one is subjectively experiencing. Perception itself is subjective experience.

That which one perceives, as it appears to the person as subjective experience, can only rationally itself be made up of subjective experience existing in the external world that transmits from the external person or persons into the perception of the perceiver. Nonexperience, as it is not experience, cannot rationally perform this action, save in the magicks of existential transformation or creation ex nihilo.

If what you experience is not what you perceive, the only thing that can be perceived outside introspection of experience is not nonexperience, but the experiences of another person or persons residing in the external world.
If by "logical" you mean "reasonable" or "resulting from sound reasoning", I disagree completely. For, to repeat myself, (ontologically) reductive mentalism à la Berkeley is based on an incorrect ontology of perception, according to which the subjective sense-content of perception is its (only) object, such that we never perceive anything but our own subjective experiences or appearances
Berkeley denies the existence of 'unperceived substance' (nonmental/nonexperiential reality), as do I. Berkeley, however, believes that subjective sense-content of perception is its only object in terms of their not being a nonmental/nonexperiential object corresponding to the sense-content of perception. He goes on to state that there is na external source of sensory-content: the sensory-content of the Judeo-Christian God, who provides the sensory-content of human beings (I expound upon this by dividing the type of content between God's non-lucid dreams, lucid dreams, and wakeful experience).
By the way, apart from the question of whether there is a coherently intelligible concept of a mind/soul/spirit qua mental substance, Berkeley denies that we can have sensory ideas or percepts of ourselves or other subjects as mental substances, so there is a sense in which we and they (including God) qua subjects of mentality are noumenal entities in his worldview.

QUOTE:
"A spirit is an active being. It is simple, in the sense that it doesn’t have parts. When thought of as something that perceives ideas, it is called ‘the understanding’, and when thought of as producing ideas or doing things with them, it is called ‘the will’. But understanding and will are different powers that a spirit has; they aren’t parts of it. It follows that no-one can form an idea of a soul or spirit. We have seen in 25 that all ideas are passive and inert, and therefore no idea can represent an active thing, which is what a spirit is, because no idea can resemble an active thing. If you think about it a little, you’ll see clearly that it is absolutely impossible to have an idea that is like an active cause of the change of ideas. The nature of spirit (i.e. that which acts) is such that it cannot itself be perceived; all we can do is to perceive the effects it produces. To perceive a spirit would be to have an idea of it, that is, an idea that resembles it; and I have shown that no idea can resemble a spirit because ideas are passive and spirits active. If you think I may be wrong about this, you should look in on yourself and try to form the idea of a power or of an active being, that is, a thing that has power. To do this, you need to have ideas of two principal powers called ‘will’ and ‘understanding’, these ideas being distinct from each other and from a third idea of substance or being in general, which is called ‘soul’ or ‘spirit’; and you must also have a relative notion of spirit’s supporting or being the subject of those two powers. Some people say that they have all that; but it seems to me that the words ‘will’ and ‘spirit’ don’t stand for distinct ideas, or indeed for any idea at all, but for something very different from ideas. Because this ‘something’ is an agent, it cannot resemble or be represented by any idea whatsoever. Though it must be admitted that we have some notion of soul, spirit, and operations of the mind such as willing, loving and hating, in that we understand the meanings of those words."

(Berkeley, George. Principles of Human Knowledge. 1710. Part 1, §27)
/QUOTE
My take is that 'spirit' if one denies or ignores the idea of spirit as supernatural ectoplasm (which I deny), may be Berkeley's terms for the first-person subject of experience, which is invisible and intangible. One cannot form an idea of the first-person subjective of experience, only of its experiences. Thus we have some notion of soul or spirit (the first-person subject of experience) by looking upon oneself as an invisible and intangible subject of experiences and the experiences occurring to it.
We are currently living within the mind of Jesus Christ as he is currently being crucified. One may think there is no God, or if one believes in God, one thinks one lives outside the mind of Christ in a post-crucifixion present.

In other news...
popeye1945
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Re: Existence only appears or manifests....

Post by popeye1945 »

phenomenal_graffiti wrote: January 29th, 2020, 5:47 am ....in the form of a subjectively experiencing person and that which the person experiences at the moment the person experiences it.

Existence does not appear in any other form.

Existence may not appear in any other form.

In order for something to be experienced, it must be composed of subjective experience.

If something is not composed of subjective experience, it cannot be experienced.
This is just the difference between what is called apparent reality and that of ultimate reality, ultimate reality we have no biological perception of. :) :)
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Sculptor1
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Re: Existence only appears or manifests....

Post by Sculptor1 »

phenomenal_graffiti wrote: January 29th, 2020, 5:47 am ....in the form of a subjectively experiencing person and that which the person experiences at the moment the person experiences it.

Existence does not appear in any other form.

Existence may not appear in any other form.

In order for something to be experienced, it must be composed of subjective experience.

If something is not composed of subjective experience, it cannot be experienced.
Obviously when you find others and share those experiences you begin to build up a picture of the objective world in which we live.
popeye1945
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Re: Existence only appears or manifests....

Post by popeye1945 »

The objective world in which we live is only apparent reality, the reason it appears as it does is because of the nature of our common biology. There is much out there which we do not experience, due to the fact that our senses not only enable but limit our ability to sense the larger spectrum.
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Mark Victor Hansen, Relentless: Wisdom Behind the Incomparable Chicken Soup for the Soul

Mark Victor Hansen, Relentless: Wisdom Behind the Incomparable Chicken Soup for the Soul
by Mitzi Perdue
February 2023

Rediscovering the Wisdom of Human Nature: How Civilization Destroys Happiness

Rediscovering the Wisdom of Human Nature: How Civilization Destroys Happiness
by Chet Shupe
March 2023

The Unfakeable Code®

The Unfakeable Code®
by Tony Jeton Selimi
April 2023

The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are

The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are
by Alan Watts
May 2023

Killing Abel

Killing Abel
by Michael Tieman
June 2023

Reconfigurement: Reconfiguring Your Life at Any Stage and Planning Ahead

Reconfigurement: Reconfiguring Your Life at Any Stage and Planning Ahead
by E. Alan Fleischauer
July 2023

First Survivor: The Impossible Childhood Cancer Breakthrough

First Survivor: The Impossible Childhood Cancer Breakthrough
by Mark Unger
August 2023

Predictably Irrational

Predictably Irrational
by Dan Ariely
September 2023

Artwords

Artwords
by Beatriz M. Robles
November 2023

Fireproof Happiness: Extinguishing Anxiety & Igniting Hope

Fireproof Happiness: Extinguishing Anxiety & Igniting Hope
by Dr. Randy Ross
December 2023

Beyond the Golden Door: Seeing the American Dream Through an Immigrant's Eyes

Beyond the Golden Door: Seeing the American Dream Through an Immigrant's Eyes
by Ali Master
February 2024

2022 Philosophy Books of the Month

Emotional Intelligence At Work

Emotional Intelligence At Work
by Richard M Contino & Penelope J Holt
January 2022

Free Will, Do You Have It?

Free Will, Do You Have It?
by Albertus Kral
February 2022

My Enemy in Vietnam

My Enemy in Vietnam
by Billy Springer
March 2022

2X2 on the Ark

2X2 on the Ark
by Mary J Giuffra, PhD
April 2022

The Maestro Monologue

The Maestro Monologue
by Rob White
May 2022

What Makes America Great

What Makes America Great
by Bob Dowell
June 2022

The Truth Is Beyond Belief!

The Truth Is Beyond Belief!
by Jerry Durr
July 2022

Living in Color

Living in Color
by Mike Murphy
August 2022 (tentative)

The Not So Great American Novel

The Not So Great American Novel
by James E Doucette
September 2022

Mary Jane Whiteley Coggeshall, Hicksite Quaker, Iowa/National Suffragette And Her Speeches

Mary Jane Whiteley Coggeshall, Hicksite Quaker, Iowa/National Suffragette And Her Speeches
by John N. (Jake) Ferris
October 2022

In It Together: The Beautiful Struggle Uniting Us All

In It Together: The Beautiful Struggle Uniting Us All
by Eckhart Aurelius Hughes
November 2022

The Smartest Person in the Room: The Root Cause and New Solution for Cybersecurity

The Smartest Person in the Room
by Christian Espinosa
December 2022

2021 Philosophy Books of the Month

The Biblical Clock: The Untold Secrets Linking the Universe and Humanity with God's Plan

The Biblical Clock
by Daniel Friedmann
March 2021

Wilderness Cry: A Scientific and Philosophical Approach to Understanding God and the Universe

Wilderness Cry
by Dr. Hilary L Hunt M.D.
April 2021

Fear Not, Dream Big, & Execute: Tools To Spark Your Dream And Ignite Your Follow-Through

Fear Not, Dream Big, & Execute
by Jeff Meyer
May 2021

Surviving the Business of Healthcare: Knowledge is Power

Surviving the Business of Healthcare
by Barbara Galutia Regis M.S. PA-C
June 2021

Winning the War on Cancer: The Epic Journey Towards a Natural Cure

Winning the War on Cancer
by Sylvie Beljanski
July 2021

Defining Moments of a Free Man from a Black Stream

Defining Moments of a Free Man from a Black Stream
by Dr Frank L Douglas
August 2021

If Life Stinks, Get Your Head Outta Your Buts

If Life Stinks, Get Your Head Outta Your Buts
by Mark L. Wdowiak
September 2021

The Preppers Medical Handbook

The Preppers Medical Handbook
by Dr. William W Forgey M.D.
October 2021

Natural Relief for Anxiety and Stress: A Practical Guide

Natural Relief for Anxiety and Stress
by Dr. Gustavo Kinrys, MD
November 2021

Dream For Peace: An Ambassador Memoir

Dream For Peace
by Dr. Ghoulem Berrah
December 2021