Anybody willing to defend Kastrup on this? (solipsism and unconsciousness)

[stratos]

Hallo, nice to meet you, my first post here.

I am not a fan of Katrup's philosophical positions, and i would like to begin the unraveling of the many problems i find in them. Let's begin with the other minds. Ok, there is an evident somethingness to begin with, some tastes, sights, smels ect. Not "my" tastes, sights, smells though. Just... tastes sights and smells. How do you go from here, to where there are supposidly OTHER tastes, sights and smells?...
There is a leap, and this leap is bridged conceptualy (with some speculation and non evidentiality). And an analogus kind of bridging happens with the speculation about unconsiousness. I don't buy the metaphorts about disosiative personality disorder and such. He found A disorder that could fit A metaphor that could explain HIS narrative about everything being one and having accesss to everything? And do i have accesess to your taste of cherries but i cannot recall it or i will grand access when i die?Is it after death that we will be again one?... Come on... What the reasoning behind this?...
And many many other things. His position is in the air.

But i would be glad to debate these things with someone willing to defend Katrup.

Thanks.

[Soul_of_Shu]

I’m going to give the benefit of the doubt here, and presume that you have read a significant amount of BK’s overall body of work—beyond just cursorily fast-forwarding through some interviews—in which he comprehensively and clearly puts forward his own defence, and thus further presume that your rejection of his defence is indeed based on a thorough, well-informed, un-muddled understanding of what is being defended. And so allowing that anyone here feels that they can elaborate on BK’s own defence, or offer a more convincing explication of idealism, in a way that can make it any more plausible to you, I’m going to trust that it won’t just go in the predictable direction of failing to overcome some intractable misunderstandings.

[stratos]

I’m going to give the benefit of the doubt here, and presume that you have read a significant amount of BK’s overall body of work—beyond just cursorily fast-forwarding through some interviews—in which he comprehensively and clearly puts forward his own defence, and thus further presume that your rejection of his defence is indeed based on a thorough, well-informed, un-muddled understanding of what is being defended.

What's your opinion on this



"Whait until you are dead and the you will be fully telepathic" How cute?...

And then proceeds to acount for a dream comming true... Unbilievable...

[Soul_of_Shu]

What's your opinion on this

My opinion is that, as suspected, you're focused on some remark in a casual interview, while ignoring the larger comprehensive body of work that gives it some nuanced context. Sorry, but I'm not going to indulge in this kind of simplistic, transparent baiting, simply to relieve whatever ennui is compelling you to engage in it. I expect that other participants here will see through it just as readily, and not get sucked into taking the bait. But hey, if they do, I'll moderate it according to the house rules.

[stratos]

What's your opinion on this

My opinion is that, as suspected, you're focused on some remark in a casual interview, while ignoring the larger comprehensive body of work that gives it some nuanced context. Sorry, but I'm not going to indulge in this kind of simplistic, transparent baiting, simply to relieve whatever ennui is compelling you to engage in it. I expect that other participants here will see through it just as readily, and not get sucked into taking the bait. But hey, if they do, I'll moderate it according to the house rules.

Nah, i don't buy this... "go read everything Kastrups wrote in his life and then come and ask simple questions about his philosophy". If you are not willing to expose his or your opinions to criticism you are very well welcome to do so. Someone else might will.

[Soul_of_Shu]

Nah, i don't buy this...

Well no surprise there ... Look, BK makes remarks in interviews that I also don't fully resonate with, but putting it in perspective of his overall body of work, including the many papers in peer-reviewed journals, several SciAm articles, the content being produced from the Essentia Foundation, etc, I can't get overly worried about every time he might be inclined to elaborate upon questions put to him in an interview, in an effort to meaningfully engage with whatever the interviewer's, along with their target audience, special area of interest may be, even if sometimes that becomes epistemologically unfounded, as he is hardly infallible in that regard ... after all, who among us is?

[JustinG]

What's your opinion on this

My opinion is that, as suspected, you're focused on some remark in a casual interview, while ignoring the larger comprehensive body of work that gives it some nuanced context. Sorry, but I'm not going to indulge in this kind of simplistic, transparent baiting, simply to relieve whatever ennui is compelling you to engage in it. I expect that other participants here will see through it just as readily, and not get sucked into taking the bait. But hey, if they do, I'll moderate it according to the house rules.

Nah, i don't buy this... "go read everything Kastrups wrote in his life and then come and ask simple questions about his philosophy". If you are not willing to expose his or your opinions to criticism you are very well welcome to do so. Someone else might will.

I agree that nobody should be expected to read everything BK wrote, or even a lot of it, in order to critique his philosophy.

Specific academic papers, which are not too long, are relatively self-contained, and address specific issues, could be a useful starting ground for discussions. A lot of his arguments for idealism are not based on certainty but parsimony (eg it's more economical to posit one ontological primitive instead of two).
I found this one to be pretty good: https://philpapers.org/rec/KASTUI

[AshvinP]

Hallo, nice to meet you, my first post here.

I am not a fan of Katrup's philosophical positions, and i would like to begin the unraveling of the many problems i find in them. Let's begin with the other minds. Ok, there is an evident somethingness to begin with, some tastes, sights, smels ect. Not "my" tastes, sights, smells though. Just... tastes sights and smells. How do you go from here, to where there are supposidly OTHER tastes, sights and smells?...
There is a leap, and this leap is bridged conceptualy (with some speculation and non evidentiality). And an analogus kind of bridging happens with the speculation about unconsiousness. I don't buy the metaphorts about disosiative personality disorder and such. He found A disorder that could fit A metaphor that could explain HIS narrative about everything being one and having accesss to everything? And do i have accesess to your taste of cherries but i cannot recall it or i will grand access when i die?Is it after death that we will be again one?... Come on... What the reasoning behind this?...
And many many other things. His position is in the air.

But i would be glad to debate these things with someone willing to defend Katrup.

Thanks.

There is a valid point buried in here somewhere - which is that we cannot argue from anything other than our own experience. We must start with a sort of "solipsism" where we do not assume anything about other minds apart from our own. From there, however, if we reason carefully and also abandon modern prejudices against our own Thinking activity, which demote it to a completely trivial and illusory role, then we can see how our own "personal" experience can only be made sense of by the shared experiential activity of all other beings. It is true, BK simply skips over that entire process and sticks DID as a substitution for it, which I think is a mistake. Yet, as far as mistakes go, it is not nearly as bad as the materialist or mystic-materialist who a priori rules out our shared ideating activity and therefore leaves Reality as a fragmented and bloody mess of experiences with zero meaning, or an amorphous homogenized blob of experience with very shallow meaning.

[lorenzop]

Re solipsism, I'm not aware of any arguments to defeat solipsism, but that does make it a good philosophy. In fact it's a dead-end useless POV, and all ontologies, including materialism/physicalism and idealism, require inferences that include a world outside of the finite mind.

[AshvinP]

Re solipsism, I'm not aware of any arguments to defeat solipsism, but that does make it a good philosophy. In fact it's a dead-end useless POV, and all ontologies, including materialism/physicalism and idealism, require inferences that include a world outside of the finite mind.

Phenomenology of mind does not require any such inferences. We can start with our own phenomenal experience via thinking activity and 'build up' the entire phenomenal world from there. But like I said above, it requires good will and freedom from modern prejudices (habits of mind). We must realize any limitations on our "finite mind" are self-imposed and not warranted by any careful reasoning. The most important difference in this approach is that we internalize the unities of experience we find, because we are reasoning it through very carefully and for ourselves. We are not simply positing a bunch of minds and perspectives which are unified in MAL, but we are demonstrating it by thoughtful contemplation. Ultimately that is necessary to show these things to ourselves and others in any satisfying manner, and to develop spiritual freedom from within.