Philosophical Speculations

Nonetheless, it avoids any mind/matter dualism, or some other mysterious ontological category which is nether mind nor matter that gives rise to the categories of mind and matter, and which BK would no doubt claim is not as parsimonious as a Mind-only ontology. Well, the ‘mysterious’ third option c...

But I also think that it makes more sense to infer that all cells within an organism (whether animal, plant or funghi) are also alters. Possibly organelles within cells, and even lower levels than that, as well . I suspect that would lead to the combination problem - how individual cell subjectivit...

Metabolizing organisms as alters follows from the ontological position of mind as the only fundamental reality. Idealist has to explain the apparent reality of living and non-living things. Non-living things are explained as the ‘dashboard’ of perception (material stuff are actually subjective proce...

I could never understand how “ every conscious entity is participating in an ever-evolving relational process ” is compatible with the view of life on earth as a product of Darwinian evolution. Death is the inevitable end of my conscious life on earth. How does the idea that I am actually a ‘dissoci...

Does idealism support Darwinian Evolution or Intelligent design? I think Idealism cannot support Darwinian evolution or Intelligent Design. Science can only describe how matter behaves, from the outside. Suppose consciousness is actually directing evolution. How would it look like to science? It wo...

I don't disagree with the conclusions you state above, but what are we gaining from simply asserting those conclusions? I believe we need invent new ways to talk about consciousness. Science has progressed from phlogiston to space travel in less than 400 years but philosophers are quibbling over th...

Ashvin, only thing we know is that it is our own thinking activity which enables us to know how we gain knowledge I agree with this. the means of gaining knowledge itself, i.e. our thinking activity, presents to us as immanently explicable when we choose to observe it How do we observe our own think...

Ashvin: "The problem occurs when we try to separate "objective" knowing from some other type of knowing, presumably "subjective". That is an artifact of the modern age" Any discussion on the nature of knowledge is tricky because we do not know what exactly are the “mind...

Some physicalists believe consciousness is an illusion. This view, though contradictory to our experience of consciousness as fundamental, is based on an irresistible logic. How do we know something is real unless another person can independently verify it? Real stuff must be objectively representab...

Insightful comments. I doubt higher order mental functions have made us any better at survival as a species. Cockroaches seem to be doing great without meta cognition! Analytic Idealism maintains a strictly Darwinian view of evolution as far as I know. Does it make sense to say subjective processes ...