Criticism

[Eugene I]

Without energy there is no consciousness. Therefore consciousness arises from energy.
Without water there is no consciousness. Therefore consciousness arises from water.
Without air there is no consciousness. Therefore consciousness arises from air.
Without proteins there is no consciousness. Therefore consciousness arises from proteins.

Very poetic indeed

[JeffreyW]

Without energy there is no consciousness. Therefore consciousness arises from energy.
Without water there is no consciousness. Therefore consciousness arises from water.
Without air there is no consciousness. Therefore consciousness arises from air.
Without proteins there is no consciousness. Therefore consciousness arises from proteins.

Very poetic indeed

Thanks. As you show, there are many things more elemental than consciousness.

[JeffreyW]

All I can say is my experience, including over 30 years of meditation and a long time musician, is very different from what you describe. On the other hand, Idea is always a reduction of a reality that cannot be grasp as an idea.

That is exactly my point. When the bold is "all you can say", i.e. you must remain within your own limited personal experience, and accept that experience as it is immediately given to you (naive realism), to philosophize about the structure of Reality itself, you are firmly within the domain of Schopenhauer's criticism in that quote and, by definition, engaged in abstract metaphysics, which is also related to Scott's overall point about naive materialism-dualism. Whatever you are positing or failing to posit about Reality beyond your own immediate personal experience is abstract metaphysical speculation - metaphysical positing and failing to posit, i.e. speculation that is not first reasoned out carefully, about the structure of Reality are two sides of the same coin.

Almost every philosophical intellectual of the 'post-modern' age has perceived this flaw in other thought-systems but not their own. BK perceives it in crass materialism-dualism but not in his own analytic idealism. You perceive it in BK's idealism but not your own conception of "esthetic knowledge". Everyone ends up criticizing everyone else without realizing they are all operating according to the same flawed assumption. Cleric has discussed the shortcomings of mystical philosophy, which refuses to evolve with the currents of cognition, at length on this forum. So I will just say, if you find yourself unwilling to consider these well-reasoned criticisms of your view, then you should ask yourself why? If your consideration boils down to "all you can say in your experience", then you should at least confront the fact that you are philosophizing from a position of naive realism and abstract metaphysical speculation about the essence (or lack of essence) of "idea".

Again, my experience contradicts that. I started out an idealist in high school when I encountered Teilhard de Chardin’s Phenomenon of Man, which seems so remote to me now, but was a far more compelling and thought out work than Kastrup’s. By the time I was out of high school I had abandoned it as I became familiar with better philosophers. It was probably Nietzsche who first awakened me from the false dreams of metaphysics, and over the years I’ve thrown off all that unnecessary baggage, including any notion of god or cosmic consciousness. It isn’t that my mind is too narrow to appreciate it - to the contrary, I outgrew it.

[JeffreyW]

You see your problem here is that "energy" is something you say you observe, it is a quality of experience you have observed, you see stuff, say it is distinct from yourself and call it "energy", an idealist simply reduces your postulate of undefined "energy" into the experience itself, whatever it is that shapes the patterns and dynamics of your experience, in truth you have only ever known your own brain, unless the content of your experience is directly experienced, which means naive realism and an interface between conscious energy and non conscious energy which has the added funny of assuming the qualities experience of non conscious energy reveals said energy's actual qualities. Which sort of imply's that energy is experience, or of a nature of quality at least instead of quantity. (nonconscious quality?)

Probably the most serious fault in this sort of idealism is that it inevitably dissolves into the mist of the notion that we can only know consciousness and nothing outside of our consciousness - an untenable and wholly unpersuasive proposition. Consciousness is our mode of knowing things in the world. If you want to deny that we are affected by energy outside our bodies which register through our consciousness, then there is no possibility of a serious discussion. If you were entirely honest, you would acknowledge you don’t live your own life under that assumption.

It is also wrong to conclude that if energy is a necessary condition prior to consciousness then energy is consciousness, just as it would be wrong to say that heat is a necessary condition for water to turn to steam, therefore water is heat. Cosmic evolution, including life, would indicate that consciousness is a late emergence within this universe of energy.

Despite your proclamations of integrated beingness you have reduced the subject to the object, but the object is a sensation within the subject, unless we are naive realists, if we are not then it is qualia first and everything else is speculation. Now you could say that machines record objects, and we consistently encounter objects in various locations independent of our individual minds, an idealist then postulates that experience's are occurrences that take place in a non local field of experience as a whole, and that the apparent experiential nature of the universe is then accounted for with no hard problem of consciousness, but then we are stretching our qualia out to all it represents. The physicalist who may or may not need reality to be one consistent ontological whole is adamant that experience is derived from non experiential forms or whatever stuff:X, Kastrup and the new idealists alongside the panpsychics come to life asking how something that does not have experience at the core of it's nature comes to experience if experience is not inherent, now you have said you don't believe in any one substance, that's fine but if the totality of mystery stuff:X is non experiential, then how the fuck does it jump ontologies into an experiential stuff or composite, even if for a blip in time? Now you can deny the sovereignty of strong ontological assumptions, but then it's a less defined transition between the experiential and the non experiential and we get a vague pointer in the direction of panprotopsychism. OR you can just say consciousness is epiphenomenal, but I think that the human visual and hearing system (and hands) strongly points to evolution favouring conscious experience, the head set is set up for it so it is of primary importance to our biological system, so it has causal efficacy over the shape of our heads and brains through evolutionary selection, hardly a side effect.

A naive realist is somebody, well-represented in the sciences and analytic philosophy, who believes that reality is exactly as we represent it. That is far from my position, knowing full well that our representational world is but a construct our brains, totally shielded from anything outside the skull, create from electric impulses. I couldn’t be further from a naive realist.

Along with that, I most definitely do not reduce to object when I think esthetically. Just the opposite. I refrain from defining the mystery we live in in favor of an unmediated connection in experience. From that I can relay music or metaphor, but nothing like objectification. It is the Idealist, who in reducing ultimate mystery to the reductive definition of consciousness, resort to object - the very basis of metaphysics.

[JeffreyW]

I think you have misread me. First, I do not posit energy as what Kastrup calls the ontological primitive. In fact I have gone out of my way to emphasize that no such thing is even possible. I do say that energy is the lowest element in our experience, at least so far, but that in no way implies energy is the lowest element, or even that such a lowest exists. I do not “assume” this, but observe it. Without energy there is no consciousness. At the quantum field level, which is the lowest level of reality we yet know, energy is all there is.

We know through observation that evolution is a process that brought us as a species to where we are, That would be the most likely explanation for consciousness. We only encounter consciousness in life, and to attribute it to non-life would be the sort of metaphysical leap I refuse. Life is also composed of elements that themselves are not alive, and it is no great leap to assume the same for consciousness.

I’ve not given them any food. Perhaps they are biting at lures.

Maybe I am misreading too, but how are you reconciling the bold with the underlined? You say you refuse to make the metaphysical leap of attributing consciousness to non-life, and then immediately say it is not a great leap to assume consciousness can be "composed" of [presumably non-conscious] elements.

I think you are misusing the term “metaphysical leap”. A metaphysical leap would be a claim not observable in this world. It is easily observable that living beings are made up of protein, water, polypeptides, etc, which alone do not display life. The same can be said of consciousness, which has never been observed outside a living being. Even Kastrup conceded that much with his ATP marker.

Besides that, the red part is clearly naive realism and metaphysical speculation at work (and also reductionism - "composed of"). As I have explained, you fail to see that about consciousness because it comes from a cessation of reasoning once you reached desired conclusion of, "I just don't know and nobody knows or can possibly know right now". But it is clear when you speak about "life". So BK stops reasoning when he reaches his preferred conclusion that consciousness is fundamental, and you stop reasoning when you reach your preferred conclusion that "I don't know what consciousness is", then extrapolating your lack of knowledge onto everyone else, past-present-future, which is exactly what Kant did.

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=648

Kant thereby violates the very first principle he laid out not more than a few pages after laying it out - the principle that we cannot derive knowledge from beyond potential 1st-person experience, either in the form of sense-impressions or cognitive 'intuitions'. The assertion that "certain of our cognitions rise above the sphere of all possible experience... to which there exists in the whole extent of experience no corresponding object", is a baseless speculation from the 3rd-person spectator perspective. No individual can determine, from potential 1st-person experience, the true extent of "all possible experience" which can provide "corresponding objects" for certain cognitions. In making this assertion, Kant has raised himself up into the non-existent 3rd-person spectator perspective on the Universe. He feels that the space of all possible experience is laid bare before him, including the experience of every other perspective apart from his own.

What you call a “cessation of reason” is what I call remaining silent before what cannot be spoken. That consciousness exists outside of life is the real baseless speculation for the 3rd person perspective. Even if it were true, we don’t know that. More importantly, there is no good reason to accept it.

In addition to “metaphysical”, I also see “naive realism” misused almost every time in this thread. As I explained above, naive realism pertains the attitude most commonly seen among scientists and analytic philosophers, that the world is exactly as it appears to us and we live in an orderly universe amenable to our rational understanding. I couldn’t be more different.

I should also clarify my position that we innately have two modes of understanding: rational/objective understanding which enables our practical survival within a small band of reality; and esthetic non-objective knowledge, without which we do revert to naive realism.

[AshvinP]

I think you have misread me. First, I do not posit energy as what Kastrup calls the ontological primitive. In fact I have gone out of my way to emphasize that no such thing is even possible. I do say that energy is the lowest element in our experience, at least so far, but that in no way implies energy is the lowest element, or even that such a lowest exists. I do not “assume” this, but observe it. Without energy there is no consciousness. At the quantum field level, which is the lowest level of reality we yet know, energy is all there is.

We know through observation that evolution is a process that brought us as a species to where we are, That would be the most likely explanation for consciousness. We only encounter consciousness in life, and to attribute it to non-life would be the sort of metaphysical leap I refuse. Life is also composed of elements that themselves are not alive, and it is no great leap to assume the same for consciousness.

I’ve not given them any food. Perhaps they are biting at lures.

Maybe I am misreading too, but how are you reconciling the bold with the underlined? You say you refuse to make the metaphysical leap of attributing consciousness to non-life, and then immediately say it is not a great leap to assume consciousness can be "composed" of [presumably non-conscious] elements.

I think you are misusing the term “metaphysical leap”. A metaphysical leap would be a claim not observable in this world. It is easily observable that living beings are made up of protein, water, polypeptides, etc, which alone do not display life. The same can be said of consciousness, which has never been observed outside a living being. Even Kastrup conceded that much with his ATP marker.

Let me ask this way - do you acknowledge what you write above about livings beings is naive realism? That you are assuming you already know the essence of those "components" just from your immediate perception and understanding of them? I have pointed out to you why modern science flatly rejects this naive realist understanding, IF we approach the results without any prejudices, but you failed to provide any counter-argument to a processual understanding of biology. If you think naive realism is a perfectly valid philosophical approach, then that's fine... I just want to know if that is actually your position here.

What you call a “cessation of reason” is what I call remaining silent before what cannot be spoken. That consciousness exists outside of life is the real baseless speculation for the 3rd person perspective. Even if it were true, we don’t know that. More importantly, there is no good reason to accept it.

In addition to “metaphysical”, I also see “naive realism” misused almost every time in this thread. As I explained above, naive realism pertains the attitude most commonly seen among scientists and analytic philosophers, that the world is exactly as it appears to us and we live in an orderly universe amenable to our rational understanding. I couldn’t be more different.

I should also clarify my position that we innately have two modes of understanding: rational/objective understanding which enables our practical survival within a small band of reality; and esthetic non-objective knowledge, without which we do revert to naive realism.

OK, well I wrote the above question before reading this... so I think it's clear you are applying "naive realism" only to the positions you don't agree with, but not to your own. This is exactly what BK does when challenging materialism but also relying on concepts like "alters" and "dissociation" and "life corresponding to metabolic processes". I disagree with BK that any of those concepts are epistemically useful and your concept of "energy", "ATP", "life", etc. are functioning in the exact same way. This is why I keep referencing that Schop quote - it was a brilliant observation and his philosophy was a great example of it at the same time, just as BK's and your own.

The rational/objective vs. esthetic/non-objective "modes of understanding" philosophy you are putting forth here is simply a reformulation of the object/subject dualism of Cartesian rationalism and Kantian idealism. It is very clear for anyone to see this from the 'outside looking in', so to speak. The concepts match up almost perfectly and they certainly function in the exact same way. What is "objective-rational" (matter) can be spoken about and investigated publicly, what is "subjective" remains a perpetual mystery for each "private" mind to contemplate and nothing else. It is when people are intellectually invested in their own thought-system, which can occur for reasons quite independent of finances, reputation, etc., that they inevitably fail to perceive this dualism in their own thought.

We have seen it happen on this forum in so many different ways at this point, and each person who ignores this aspect of their own thought will project it onto everyone they disagree with like clockwork. The subconscious does not go away when we ignore it, but manifests as something which feels "oppressive" to us in some way within the world and people surrounding us, including their beliefs and philosophies. It's a fascinating dynamic to observe.

FYI - I do not hold consciousness exists outside of life, because I do not think there is any logical warrant to posit "non-life" in the Cosmos. That is only possible under the sway of naive realism which leads to dualism and reductionism. Life is reduced to abstract components and then people begin confusing the abstractions for "real things" which are non-living. BK and yourself share that one exactly in common.

[JeffreyW]

Maybe I am misreading too, but how are you reconciling the bold with the underlined? You say you refuse to make the metaphysical leap of attributing consciousness to non-life, and then immediately say it is not a great leap to assume consciousness can be "composed" of [presumably non-conscious] elements.

I think you are misusing the term “metaphysical leap”. A metaphysical leap would be a claim not observable in this world. It is easily observable that living beings are made up of protein, water, polypeptides, etc, which alone do not display life. The same can be said of consciousness, which has never been observed outside a living being. Even Kastrup conceded that much with his ATP marker.

Let me ask this way - do you acknowledge what you write above about livings beings is naive realism? That you are assuming you already know the essence of those "components" just from your immediate perception and understanding of them? I have pointed out to you why modern science flatly rejects this naive realist understanding, IF we approach the results without any prejudices, but you failed to provide any counter-argument to a processual understanding of biology. If you think naive realism is a perfectly valid philosophical approach, then that's fine... I just want to know if that is actually your position here.

What you call a “cessation of reason” is what I call remaining silent before what cannot be spoken. That consciousness exists outside of life is the real baseless speculation for the 3rd person perspective. Even if it were true, we don’t know that. More importantly, there is no good reason to accept it.

In addition to “metaphysical”, I also see “naive realism” misused almost every time in this thread. As I explained above, naive realism pertains the attitude most commonly seen among scientists and analytic philosophers, that the world is exactly as it appears to us and we live in an orderly universe amenable to our rational understanding. I couldn’t be more different.

I should also clarify my position that we innately have two modes of understanding: rational/objective understanding which enables our practical survival within a small band of reality; and esthetic non-objective knowledge, without which we do revert to naive realism.

OK, well I wrote the above question before reading this... so I think it's clear you are applying "naive realism" only to the positions you don't agree with, but not to your own. This is exactly what BK does when challenging materialism but also relying on concepts like "alters" and "dissociation" and "life corresponding to metabolic processes". I disagree with BK that any of those concepts are epistemically useful and your concept of "energy", "ATP", "life", etc. are functioning in the exact same way. This is why I keep referencing that Schop quote - it was a brilliant observation and his philosophy was a great example of it at the same time, just as BK's and your own.

I’m using “naive realism” in the usual understanding of the word, but if you want to use it differently that’s fine with me, just tell me what you mean by it. My position in no way assumes reality is anything like we represent it, and rejects the notion that our innate reason is applicable to reality in general. Perhaps you mean to reject any kind of knowledge we gain through the senses? But if so, that would also exclude life and consciousness.

The rational/objective vs. esthetic/non-objective "modes of understanding" philosophy you are putting forth here is simply a reformulation of the object/subject dualism of Cartesian rationalism and Kantian idealism. It is very clear for anyone to see this from the 'outside looking in', so to speak. The concepts match up almost perfectly and they certainly function in the exact same way. What is "objective-rational" (matter) can be spoken about and investigated publicly, what is "subjective" remains a perpetual mystery for each "private" mind to contemplate and nothing else. It is when people are intellectually invested in their own thought-system, which can occur for reasons quite independent of finances, reputation, etc., that they inevitably fail to perceive this dualism in their own thought.

This is a serious misunderstanding of what I mean by esthetic knowledge, which is the sort of thing not only NOT related to Kantian Idealism, but something I doubt Kant could even conceive. Kantian Idealism really is related to metaphysical idealism, which he retained to preserve his belief in god and free will. It rejects the senses in favor of Pure Reason. My approach is to explore what is revealed to our senses prior to any subject/object metaphysics at all. That means to relay poetically or musically what is revealed and remain silent about what isn’t. Of course, that isn’t happening on this thread, which is a conversation resolutely confined to subject/object analysis and argumentation. We are all bi-lingual in this regard, but most are more proficient in one than in the other.

Esthetic knowledge is not subjective as opposed to an object perceived, but an entanglement between our consciousness and the world in which both are equally participatory, negating any notion of what is subject and what is object.

We have seen it happen on this forum in so many different ways at this point, and each person who ignores this aspect of their own thought will project it onto everyone they disagree with like clockwork. The subconscious does not go away when we ignore it, but manifests as something which feels "oppressive" to us in some way within the world and people surrounding us, including their beliefs and philosophies. It's a fascinating dynamic to observe.

FYI - I do not hold consciousness exists outside of life, because I do not think there is any logical warrant to posit "non-life" in the Cosmos. That is only possible under the sway of naive realism which leads to dualism and reductionism. Life is reduced to abstract components and then people begin confusing the abstractions for "real things" which are non-living. BK and yourself share that one exactly in common.

I would agree to the extent that there is a continuity arising from life’s emergence from the cosmos, but that doesn’t imply that what is pre-emergent shares life. All experience would contradict that assumption, which renders it a mere metaphysical assertion.

[AshvinP]

I’m using “naive realism” in the usual understanding of the word, but if you want to use it differently that’s fine with me, just tell me what you mean by it. My position in no way assumes reality is anything like we represent it, and rejects the notion that our innate reason is applicable to reality in general. Perhaps you mean to reject any kind of knowledge we gain through the senses? But if so, that would also exclude life and consciousness.

Alright, let's get more specific to clarify then. You say, "living beings are made up of protein, water, polypeptides, etc, which alone do not display life". For you, is that simply the phenomenal appearance of whatever deeper underlying processes put it on the 'screen' of our representational perception, or have you actually reached a solid conclusion about the essence (or whatever you prefer to call it) of living beings?

I have a response to the rest of what you wrote, but let's see where the above takes us first...

[JeffreyW]

I’m using “naive realism” in the usual understanding of the word, but if you want to use it differently that’s fine with me, just tell me what you mean by it. My position in no way assumes reality is anything like we represent it, and rejects the notion that our innate reason is applicable to reality in general. Perhaps you mean to reject any kind of knowledge we gain through the senses? But if so, that would also exclude life and consciousness.

Alright, let's get more specific to clarify then. You say, "living beings are made up of protein, water, polypeptides, etc, which alone do not display life". For you, is that simply the phenomenal appearance of whatever deeper underlying processes put it on the 'screen' of our representational perception, or have you actually reached a solid conclusion about the essence (or whatever you prefer to call it) of living beings?

I have a response to the rest of what you wrote, but let's see where the above takes us first...

It is our representation of sense data, which is superficially correct within the small slice of reality we call classical or Newtonian. Nothing deeper can be said from this rational/objective mode, but then this entire thread has remained within that mode. This has been no deep exploration of Being.

[AshvinP]

I’m using “naive realism” in the usual understanding of the word, but if you want to use it differently that’s fine with me, just tell me what you mean by it. My position in no way assumes reality is anything like we represent it, and rejects the notion that our innate reason is applicable to reality in general. Perhaps you mean to reject any kind of knowledge we gain through the senses? But if so, that would also exclude life and consciousness.

Alright, let's get more specific to clarify then. You say, "living beings are made up of protein, water, polypeptides, etc, which alone do not display life". For you, is that simply the phenomenal appearance of whatever deeper underlying processes put it on the 'screen' of our representational perception, or have you actually reached a solid conclusion about the essence (or whatever you prefer to call it) of living beings?

I have a response to the rest of what you wrote, but let's see where the above takes us first...

It is our representation of sense data, which is superficially correct within the small slice of reality we call classical or Newtonian. Nothing deeper can be said from this rational/objective mode, but then this entire thread has remained within that mode. This has been no deep exploration of Being.

OK, so would you then admit it tells you nothing about the Being of consciousness or idea? Perceiving that these "components" or "energy" is "prior to" consciousness tells you nothing whatsoever about the deeper Being of energy or consciousness, correct?