Criticism

[Mark Tetzner]

Which makes the actual perception of energy prior to conceptualization. Even Kastrup didn’t go to this extreme when he declared ATP as a marker of consciousness, thereby reducing consciousness to energy. It undermined his the basic claim of his metaphysics that consciousness is irreducible. It’s foolish to claim any concept as the irreducible ontological primitive, but energy is the most elemental existence we now know.

Bernardo says that emperically we have no reason to believe that rocks or computers are consciouss, only the things that have metabolilsm are consciouss. Its basically his way of saying no to panpsychism and stop unwarrented speculations which he calls conceivability-traps.

All the ATP-stuff: Under this idealistic model an organism is a knot of mind in mind. There is no reason to assume the universe needs ATP. It does not have sense-organs and it does not live on planet earth. Its state of being should be completely different than ours.

Not energy but experience is the one thing we can know of and it is a metaphysical leap, alright, of the only category we know to exist: experience. If it holds true we will see soon.

And that is where his metaphysics breaks down, as all metaphysics do. Not for the first time he had to refer to physicality to defend a claim - in this case energy. If ATP is the marker and consciousness disappears without it, then consciousness reduces to energy and there is no basis to claim that all energy is conscious. Seriously, it’s over at that point.

Our personal consciousness disappears with our death, that is not in dispute. When the whirlpool in the lake disappears it reduces to what itself is: Water. Not to something else like in your consciouness reduces to energy example.
Just asking you to understand the model and not beg the question all the time. Just try to imagine there is just once substance. One category: experience.

[JeffreyW]

You miss the point that we are conscious of the shock before we attribute meaning. Meaning is literally an afterthought. If we were to stay within Schopenhauer/Kantian epistemology as Kastrup claims to do, conceptualizing from the actual sense data, as in the case of an electric shock is not metaphysical but objective reality. It becomes metaphysical when we go beyond the experience of sense data, as when we claim the shock came from another consciousness.

That is why I disagree with Kant, Schopenhauer, and BK. Not just a little, but whole-heartedly But there are plenty of phenomenologists who concluded monism-idealism (did not start from it) and rejected Kantian epistemology. Phenomenology cannot possibly conclude "we are conscious of the shock before we attribute meaning". We attribute it subconsciously, but we are still attributing it. There cannot be an experience of "shock" devoid of all meaning. The fact that we cannot even speak of meaningless "shock" is a clue which points towards the meaningful essence of the primordial Logos.

Modern neuroscience traces the brain activity as it constructs the meaning. If our brains don’t construct meaning, then how do we go from electric impulses to some valid intuition of the world? The neuroscientist Anil Seth is very good on this.

[Eugene I]

Modern neuroscience traces the brain activity as it constructs the meaning. If our brains don’t construct meaning, then how do we go from electric impulses to some valid intuition of the world?

Before you make such conclusion, you ought to explain how the electric impulses in the brain give rise to the qualia of conscious experience (particularly, the conscious experience of a meaning). Have you read the works of Chalmers, are you familiar with the hard problem of consciousness?

[Mark Tetzner]

Found an interesting article on Bernardos blog.
https://www.bernardokastrup.com/2016/05 ... o-end.html
I was looking for something else originally, namely that every position needs
an inference ("leap of faith"), but then I only found this for now.

[Mark Tetzner]

You miss the point that we are conscious of the shock before we attribute meaning. Meaning is literally an afterthought. If we were to stay within Schopenhauer/Kantian epistemology as Kastrup claims to do, conceptualizing from the actual sense data, as in the case of an electric shock is not metaphysical but objective reality. It becomes metaphysical when we go beyond the experience of sense data, as when we claim the shock came from another consciousness.

That is why I disagree with Kant, Schopenhauer, and BK. Not just a little, but whole-heartedly But there are plenty of phenomenologists who concluded monism-idealism (did not start from it) and rejected Kantian epistemology. Phenomenology cannot possibly conclude "we are conscious of the shock before we attribute meaning". We attribute it subconsciously, but we are still attributing it. There cannot be an experience of "shock" devoid of all meaning. The fact that we cannot even speak of meaningless "shock" is a clue which points towards the meaningful essence of the primordial Logos.

Ashvin, are you a materialist or....
Thanks

[JeffreyW]

Modern neuroscience traces the brain activity as it constructs the meaning. If our brains don’t construct meaning, then how do we go from electric impulses to some valid intuition of the world?

Before you make such conclusion, you ought to explain how the electric impulses in the brain give rise to the qualia of conscious experience (particularly, the conscious experience of a meaning). Have you read the works of Chalmers, are you familiar with the hard problem of consciousness?

Not equivalent. That we cannot explain how consciousness arises does not imply we can’t observe brain processing. We can see that the processsing happens as a second step.

[AshvinP]

You miss the point that we are conscious of the shock before we attribute meaning. Meaning is literally an afterthought. If we were to stay within Schopenhauer/Kantian epistemology as Kastrup claims to do, conceptualizing from the actual sense data, as in the case of an electric shock is not metaphysical but objective reality. It becomes metaphysical when we go beyond the experience of sense data, as when we claim the shock came from another consciousness.

That is why I disagree with Kant, Schopenhauer, and BK. Not just a little, but whole-heartedly But there are plenty of phenomenologists who concluded monism-idealism (did not start from it) and rejected Kantian epistemology. Phenomenology cannot possibly conclude "we are conscious of the shock before we attribute meaning". We attribute it subconsciously, but we are still attributing it. There cannot be an experience of "shock" devoid of all meaning. The fact that we cannot even speak of meaningless "shock" is a clue which points towards the meaningful essence of the primordial Logos.

Modern neuroscience traces the brain activity as it constructs the meaning. If our brains don’t construct meaning, then how do we go from electric impulses to some valid intuition of the world? The neuroscientist Anil Seth is very good on this.

I am kind of bewildered by the above comment, because it seems that you don't notice that you are presupposing materialist ontology, with all of its abstractions, before interpreting the science and then hanging the rest of your philosophy on that materialist interpretation of scientific data.

[AshvinP]

You miss the point that we are conscious of the shock before we attribute meaning. Meaning is literally an afterthought. If we were to stay within Schopenhauer/Kantian epistemology as Kastrup claims to do, conceptualizing from the actual sense data, as in the case of an electric shock is not metaphysical but objective reality. It becomes metaphysical when we go beyond the experience of sense data, as when we claim the shock came from another consciousness.

That is why I disagree with Kant, Schopenhauer, and BK. Not just a little, but whole-heartedly But there are plenty of phenomenologists who concluded monism-idealism (did not start from it) and rejected Kantian epistemology. Phenomenology cannot possibly conclude "we are conscious of the shock before we attribute meaning". We attribute it subconsciously, but we are still attributing it. There cannot be an experience of "shock" devoid of all meaning. The fact that we cannot even speak of meaningless "shock" is a clue which points towards the meaningful essence of the primordial Logos.

Ashvin, are you a materialist or....
Thanks

Mark - no, not at all. I guess you don't follow the forum much (or just skip over my comments)

I am an idealist by reasoned conclusion, i.e. not assuming any ontology from the outset. Philosophically, I would say I am a pragmatist and phenomenologist.

[Eugene I]

Ashvin, are you a materialist or....
Thanks

Ashvin got confused about BK's version of idealism by interpreting it as if it is not based on phenomenology, while BK said many times that what he means by "Mind" is equivalent to the potential and phenomenal content of conscious experiences and conscious activity (thinking, feeling, perceiving). BK calls this thinking activity using the word "Will" (following Schopenhauer), but it's essentially the same Thinking that Ashvin is talking about (following Steiner's terminology). So, I think it's just a terminological confusion, they are talking about the same thing, just using different words.

[Eugene I]

Not equivalent. That we cannot explain how consciousness arises does not imply we can’t observe brain processing. We can see that the processsing happens as a second step.

What you are observing are only you conscious experiences (sense perceptions) of so-called "brain processing", but never the "brain processing" itself.