Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Philosophy Club

[popeye1945]

For those who don't need explanations and who are happy with the mysterious and spooky, Idealism is ideal.

Otherwise, call wonder, speculative philosophy.

[Lagayscienza]

Yes, Inference to the Best Explanation is the best we can do. I infer that Materialism is the best explanation for what we observe via our senses.

[Lagayscienza]

Yup, heaps of time left for amazing stuff to happen - stuff that we in our present state can not even imagine, just as "Lucy" couldn't imagine superannuation, etc.

Here's another question for Idealists. If the universe is all mind-stuff, if the matter and energy that we and the universe seem to be made of does not really exist, then why do we need illusory doors? Why can't we just pass through the illusory walls?

If Idealism is true, then yes, the "universal mind" does not appear to have much control over what seems to us to be its multitudinous physical manifestations. So, rather than it all being just a "great thought", what seems more likely is that mind arose in the physical universe when lumps of matter that could support mind evolved - that is, when neuronal networks made of physical stuff evolved.

There may well be a mind behind the show but, if so, then I'd say it almost certainly coexists with matter. But if we go down that road, we then have Dualism and all its problems. Therefore, the most parsimonious theory seems to be materialism. Evidence for Materialism is that materialistic science is so spectacularly successful and keeps providing further enlightenment. Idealism, not so much.

Of course, I may be wrong, which is why I leave the door to Idealism ever-so-slightly ajar.

It seems we have two different idealism. One that considers mind fundamental to physical reality and the other points to the most fundamental epistemological problem, that we cannot truly apprehend reality.

The problem is that we are each locked "in here", our mentalities separated from the rest of reality just as a black hole's interior is unimpeachably separate from its environment. This results in uncertainty because, while we can check other people's opinions, or infer animal perceptions via behaviour and brain/sensory structure, there's still a knowledge gap that we cannot directly cross, only make inferences about. Hence threads like this.

Yes, there are several versions of Idealism but they can be broadly categorized as addressing either an ontological or an epistemological problem.

Inference to the Best Explanation is the best we can do. I infer that for what we can perceive via our senses and via technological extensions thereof, Materialism is the best explanation.

[The Beast]

An inferential modality might deal with the imperfect paradox and some famous Zeno’s paradoxes. In such inferential modality, meaning has an inferential role. In this modal picking, the point of view is tense or aspect. What is called aspect? “deals with internal constituency of actions , events, states, processes or situations” Furthermore, the linguistic theories ( not? Any other?) of aspect are rooted in the conceptual embodied cognition coming from the “bifurcation of nature” into physical and mental domains. What is mental is the inferential aspectual patterns (meaning and labels).

[Sy Borg]

Beast also seems to see mind as an emergent property rather than fundamental, since material needs to be present before patterns in that material can be inferred.

[Lagayscienza]

Yes, looks that way.

[The Beast]

It is important for me to know that if I have an out of body experience what is it that I can take on that journey. So… Freewill. Can I leave some Freewill behind or is it one indivisible (everywhere) “aspect”. So, what I leave behind is the zombie-me formalized as “tense”. Obviously, reality shifting does not follow (POV) absurdity since the times of Aristotle. One just must see how the 9, 38, 63 (boss) works on the minds of the uneducated. One does not have to rely on an out of body experience to understand thesis/antithesis or that the view outside when looking in my window is different of what I am looking at. In case of the understanding: I am using emergence (locally), and I am using aspect in the Universal POV or reality shifting. However, it is a dynamic freewill therefore ideas (forms) especially humane come and go… or not.

[obbeel]

I think the important things about studying the "little things" is that you discover more about the relationships between matter in the world. Like chromodynamics or weak interactions, and that those elementary particles vibrations could take place in more than 6 dimensions. We also find other degrees of freedom for the same matters, which begets new technologies that we can use.

Isn't that what Physics is all about? Finding new properties of matter and describing them? Even if we go deeper into the microscope, I believe that isn't so to just say things that are there and that they should offer an explanation to our existence, but also to enrich the discussion, philosophical and scientifical.

Some scientists argued this year that the quantum quality of the brain could generate consciousness, but what is it all about?

It's more than just the usual particle-wave duality and other quantum effects that people abuse as an argument.

Finding out more about this helps Chemistry and Technology, which will then further our experience as human beings.

So, I don't believe these things bring philosophical meaning of their own, but they could enrich the philosophical discussion. Especially if we take Naturalism as our basis for the world.

While not debating the validity of science, but instead working together with it to find out what the world is all about, I think there are much benefits to be had.

That said, if it weren't for philosophical probing, we wouldn't have theories like the Universe as a Simulation and the diverse forms of the Origin of the Universe, which still can take form as an intelligent being creating everything. These are also important when discussing physicality and reality.

[Gertie]

I think the important things about studying the "little things" is that you discover more about the relationships between matter in the world. Like chromodynamics or weak interactions, and that those elementary particles vibrations could take place in more than 6 dimensions. We also find other degrees of freedom for the same matters, which begets new technologies that we can use.

Isn't that what Physics is all about? Finding new properties of matter and describing them? Even if we go deeper into the microscope, I believe that isn't so to just say things that are there and that they should offer an explanation to our existence, but also to enrich the discussion, philosophical and scientifical.

Yes, I think so. But Physics has also ended up with an explanatory model, which claims to encompass everything which exists, or at least Physicalism does. It ontologically reduces the universe to its fundamental stuff, and the lawlike forces which act on the fundamental building blocks to create the vast myriad of stuff and phenomena we see within and around us. With some gaps yet to be filled in, but presumably within the purview of the scientific physicalist methodology.

This is essentially the Materialist view as I understand it.

In terms of Materialism v Idealism, it's notable that Physicalism simply doesn't include conscious experience in its model. And that there appears to be an 'Explanatory Gap', which could mean that private conscious experience is in principle inexplicable and inaccessible to the scientific method, which relies on the observation and measurement of 'publically' observable physical stuff. Hence Chalmers talks of the Hard Problem of consciousness.

And Idealists would say that as conscious experience is the only thing we can directly know with certainty exists, 'physical stuff' is fundamentally just a way conscious experience manifests to us. I can't see how science or any philosophising could ever falsify that claim?

Some scientists argued this year that the quantum quality of the brain could generate consciousness, but what is it all about?

As the realm of what science can study expands to greater resolutions, the more fundamental building blocks are looking weirder and unpredictable to classical physics. This looks like a possible fruitful line of enquiry for hypotheses to potentially being tested. You never know if you don't look.

But there are other possibilities which can't be ruled out. It might be that conscious experience is itself a fundamental building block. Perhaps a property of all physical stuff .

It's more than just the usual particle-wave duality and other quantum effects that people abuse as an argument.

Finding out more about this helps Chemistry and Technology, which will then further our experience as human beings.

So, I don't believe these things bring philosophical meaning of their own, but they could enrich the philosophical discussion. Especially if we take Naturalism as our basis for the world.

While not debating the validity of science, but instead working together with it to find out what the world is all about, I think there are much benefits to be had.

Absolutely.

That said, if it weren't for philosophical probing, we wouldn't have theories like the Universe as a Simulation and the diverse forms of the Origin of the Universe, which still can take form as an intelligent being creating everything. These are also important when discussing physicality and reality.

Yes, there are endless possibilities, the problem is how could we test them...

[Count Lucanor]

I came to this forum as a dyed-in-the-wool materialist. I thought everything ought to be explicable in terms of matter and energy doing their stuff in space-time, supplemented with the science of evolution to explain the details of life on earth. But being here on this forum has made me think twice about this. I have been driven to explore areas of philosophy which I had once dismissed as mere metaphysical nonsense.

To be clear, what has driven me to explore metaphysics and, in particular, Idealism, is not a lack of belief in the power of science to reveal things that are true about the universe. Nor is it due to a lack of wonder at the universe that science reveals.
[…] So, no I have absolutely nothing bad to say about science. What has driven me to explore metaphysics is what seems to be a simple truth. Namely, that science, whilst it explains so much and is applicable to everything and anything in respect of the material world, does seem to I come up against a limit beyond which the only recourse seems to be to metaphysics.

[…] As I hope to have made clear, there is an explanatory gap here. Science cannot tell me what the universe is in itself. The best it can do is equations. Therefore, if I want more, I am driven to metaphysical theorizing and the only version of metaphysics that seems to answer is some form of Idealism that posits mind as, if not primary, then at least somehow contributory, in the structure of the universe we see.

[…] What are the pros and cons of idealism and of materialism. Need they be mutually exclusive?

What you have done here is to confuse the distinction between natural science (physics) and ontological philosophy (metaphysics) with the distinction between materialism and idealism, so that materialism gets identified with physics and idealism with metaphysics, or, looking at it in another way: philosophy and idealism become one and the same, while materialism is pushed away as something-that-is-not-philosophy.
Materialism is an ontology, it’s part of metaphysics. There was materialism since ancient times before there was modern science. Undoubtedly, modern physical sciences presuppose materialism (as well as realism), otherwise they would not make any sense, but that only highlights the fact that natural science and philosophy, metaphysics, are complementary. Thinking otherwise, that is, that science can do just fine without philosophy, or that it can simply replace philosophy (metaphysics), is not what one would call a dyed-in-the-wool materialism, but plain positivism.

So, even though we can agree that natural science is not where all our inquiries end, we don’t need metaphysical idealism to supply the missing all-encompassing approach. That will always prove to be a failed project, because idealism is ultimately incompatible with science and you have to renounce to it before you can move on with the idealistic program. Metaphysical idealism is nurtured and motivated by the same mysticism of religion, which is why they are compatible.

[Lagayscienza]

I agree, Count Lucanor. Materialism and Idealism are ontologies and part of metaphysics. I only started to look seriously at philosophy a few of years go after I had retired. At last, I had the time. But I knew little about metaphysics or Idealism. Since then I've been trying to improve my philosophical education.

In doing so, I have come to the conclusion that the only thing that can be said for Idealism is that, like religion and mysticism, it cannot be entirely disproved. But that is not saying much. Yes, the universe might be just one great thought, all mind-stuff, but here is not a scrap of empirical evidence to support such a notion. There was a period on this forum when I got interested in continental philosophy, Phenomenology in particular which is based in Idealism. But I have come to realize that it is a dead end - it's mostly navel gazing and word weaving that ends nowhere useful in terms of telling us what is true about the universe. It is, by and large, anti-science. So yes, materialism and Idealism are antithetical. And I am a materialist.

[Count Lucanor]

I agree, Count Lucanor. Materialism and Idealism are ontologies and part of metaphysics. I only started to look seriously at philosophy a few of years go after I had retired. At last, I had the time. But I knew little about metaphysics or Idealism. Since then I've been trying to improve my philosophical education.

In doing so, I have come to the conclusion that the only thing that can be said for Idealism is that, like religion and mysticism, it cannot be entirely disproved. But that is not saying much. Yes, the universe might be just one great thought, all mind-stuff, but here is not a scrap of empirical evidence to support such a notion. There was a period on this forum when I got interested in continental philosophy, Phenomenology in particular which is based in Idealism. But I have come to realize that it is a dead end - it's mostly navel gazing and word weaving that ends nowhere useful in terms of telling us what is true about the universe. It is, by and large, anti-science. So yes, materialism and Idealism are antithetical. And I am a materialist.

You summed it up well: idealism is a dead end. It’s main objective seems to be leaving open the gates for mystics of all kinds.

[Sy Borg]

Never say never.

The universe is not only stranger than we imagine; it is stranger than we can imagine - JBS Haldane

[Lagayscienza]

I like that quote by Haldane. However, he was no Idealist. He was a thorough going materialist, a professed socialist, atheist, and secular humanist who believed that science was our only way of understanding the universe. He understood that science will never be “finished” – there will always be more to find out. And what we don’t understand today will eventually be understood, and then new questions will arise that we could not have imagined previously. Eventually, those new questions will be elucidated by science, and then yet more questions will arise while others we cannot yet imagine remain for the future. This process will, presumably, go on indefinitely. It is a fascinating process full of hope and promise but also of great dangers if technology made possible by science is misused. But that misuse is a problem inherent in us and not in science. Science is just a tool for understanding the universe.

[Sy Borg]

What Haldane himself believes does not matter. What matters is that we do not understand reality at all, even on the most basic and fundamental levels. However, ego and pride prevent us from admitting this.