Wikipedia Hard Problem Article

[Simon Adams]

Hi all

I found a bit of time to look at the idealism articles in Wikipedia, but it does need a more fundamental rewrite that goes well beyond my competence.

So for now I have added back the section on idealism/cosmopsychism that I added previously to the “hard problem” page, along with the references Eugene kindly shared and a supporting reference from David Chalmers. It still links to the article on Objective Idealism which is not at all helpful, maybe it should link to the main Idealism article until that one is fixed? The main article is much better - in some ways it would be better to just have that.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_prob ... prov=sfti1

Please shout if you think anything should be changed on the ‘hard problem’ idealism section, or if you feel like having a start on a main article page. I was tempted to say it’s not worth the effort, as anyone even slightly serious will go to the Standord Encyclopaedia. However if you look there it’s not far from suggesting that Idealism is irrelevant, ending the article

At the beginning of the twenty-first century, however, idealism, understood as a philosophical program, may be sharing the fate of many other projects in the history of modern philosophy. Originally conceived in the middle of the eighteenth century as a real alternative to materialistic and naturalistic perspectives, it may now become sublated and integrated into views about the nature of reality that ignore metaphysical oppositions or epistemological questions connected with the assumption of the priority of mind over matter or the other way round.

[Eugene I]

Looks good, Simon!

[Simon Adams]

Good stuff

I’m not sure when you looked at it, but I edited it and;

1) I took away the first reference you gave. I think three is enough, and the first one referred to panshycism which I thought could be challenged. I want to try and make it bulletproof this time!
2) I added a sentence to try and add some context of how it could solve the hard problem: “From an idealist perspective, matter is a representation or image of mental processes, and supporters claim that this avoids the problems associated with mind as an emergent property of a physical brain.”

We will see if it survives this time...

[Eugene I]

Getting even better.
Also, you may want to include another reference to Don Hoffman's paper Conscious Realism and the Mind-Body Problem

[Simon Adams]

I have added Donald Hoffman, and also linked to the main article of Idealism instead of the Objective Idealism page (for now anyway).

On the mind-body page, there was a statement;

The three main forms of monism are physicalism, which holds that the mind consists of matter organized in a particular way; idealism, which holds that only thought truly exists and matter is merely an illusion; and neutral monism, which holds that both mind and matter are aspects of a distinct essence that is itself identical to neither of them.

I changed this to;

The three main forms of monism are physicalism, which holds that the mind consists of matter organized in a particular way; idealism, which holds that only thought truly exists and matter is merely a representation of mental processes; and neutral monism, which holds that both mind and matter are aspects of a distinct essence that is itself identical to neither of them.

Saying that matter is just an illusion is arguably misleading about what most idealists think, and this seems to be an accurate way of putting it without getting into a full debate about what is real ?

I also notice there is a draft page on BK that was unpublished due to that fact it just copied and pasted the information from another page . At some point that could be tidied up and published, but it's a bit of a mess at present and needs some basic facts...

[Martin_]

I just want to say thank you Simon for doing this.

Your wikipedia edits will be read by a lot more people than anything in this forum ever will.

True progress. (albeit in micro steps, this type of progres is of the concrete, measurable type)

[Simon Adams]

Yes that was exactly my thought. I’m sure huge numbers of people hear about the “hard problem of consciousness” as one of the big questions in science, and just go to Wikipedia to see what the options are. The fact that Idealism wasn’t there at all to start with says a lot. It often doesn’t even reach the table for discussion, even though the person who formulated the problem considers it one of the most promising approaches. It’s as if people with a materialist mindset read it, don’t get it, then ignore it.

It’s similar with the ‘mind-body problem’ article, although that does at least mention it in the intro. I think micro steps are the way, if I go and add sections everywhere I’m sure a militant physicalist will find a reason to reverse it all. You clearly have to be extra careful that everything you say is phrased in a bullet proof way...

[JustinG]

I just want to say thank you Simon for doing this.

Your wikipedia edits will be read by a lot more people than anything in this forum ever will.

True progress. (albeit in micro steps, this type of progres is of the concrete, measurable type)

I second that. Thanks Simon.

Re this thread, many people may be aware that there is a group of 100 or so Wikipedia editors known as the Guerilla Skeptics, purportedly working to improve skeptical content on Wikipedia (https://skepticalinquirer.org/exclusive ... -activism/).

Rupert Sheldrake has described the Guerilla Skeptics as dogmatic activists dedicated to propagating scientific materialism.
(https://www.sheldrake.org/essays/wikipedia-under-threat).

Given the level of organisation of the Guerilla Skeptics, it would be great if the Essentia Foundation or some other motivated folks kick-started a Materialism Skeptics group of Wikipedia editors.

[Martin_]

Given the level of organisation of the Guerilla Skeptics, it would be great if the Essentia Foundation or some other motivated folks kick-started a Materialism Skeptics group of Wikipedia editors.

Yes. I hope Essentia has an explicit Wikipedia strategy. If not, they should get one. This is what it takes to get your ideas heard.

[JustinG]

Given the level of organisation of the Guerilla Skeptics, it would be great if the Essentia Foundation or some other motivated folks kick-started a Materialism Skeptics group of Wikipedia editors.

Yes. I hope Essentia has an explicit Wikipedia strategy. If not, they should get one. This is what it takes to get your ideas heard.

Indeed, the materialist bias of Wikipedia is frustrating (though admittedly, in these days of science denialism and kooky conspiracy theories the skeptics are also doing some good stuff).

For instance, the entry for parapsychology (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parapsychology references this article (https://skepticalinquirer.org/2019/07/w ... t-be-true/), which argues that any evidence for psi can be ignored because "every claim made by psi researchers violates fundamental principles of science". The Journal of Scientific Exploration devoted almost a whole issue to debunking this and a related paper (https://www.scientificexploration.org/j ... sue-4-2019).