Metaphysics - Idealism without woo-woo

[Mandibil]

Good discussion. This is a central dispute among idealist worldviews. Is the 'thing-in-itself' inaccessible, in principle, to our experience? Or can we trace our perceptions and thoughts back to their Ground and know that Ground in its fullness?

If we could, why would we have been fiddling with a perception instead, an inferior tool in comparison, for half a billion years of evolution (Cambrian explosion ?) ?

Now the question is at what point point this belief becomes certainty? How can we be absolutely certain that there really is a world where the thing in itself is active and that we are forever stuck on "our side"? Even if by definition we can't know if such a world exists?

I am weary about "absolute certainty" with regards to anything.

I am not only weary about certainty, I outright reject it as impossible

[Mandibil]

I would strongly suggest that consideration be given to the architectonic philosophical system of Charles Sanders Peirce and recognize the deep dangers of Nominalism that suggest that an individual has access to the full truth. The truth is actually only asymptotically approachable and it is only approachable through the interactional efforts of a community of inquirers who work together to zero in on the truth. In fact, Peirce provides a clear means of approaching the nature of reality through a scientific evolutionary process metaphysics.

Truth has, imo, to do with epistemology, not metaphysics

[AshvinP]

Good discussion. This is a central dispute among idealist worldviews. Is the 'thing-in-itself' inaccessible, in principle, to our experience? Or can we trace our perceptions and thoughts back to their Ground and know that Ground in its fullness?

If we could, why would we have been fiddling with a perception instead, an inferior tool in comparison, for half a billion years of evolution (Cambrian explosion ?) ?

Perhaps because that evolutionary process is the means through which the Ground comes to know itself fully? We should consider whether our perceptions of the world are evolving or that which gives rise to perception (consciousness) is evolving. If the latter, then we can certainly consider whether there is any purpose to the process.

[Mandibil]

Good discussion. This is a central dispute among idealist worldviews. Is the 'thing-in-itself' inaccessible, in principle, to our experience? Or can we trace our perceptions and thoughts back to their Ground and know that Ground in its fullness?

If we could, why would we have been fiddling with a perception instead, an inferior tool in comparison, for half a billion years of evolution (Cambrian explosion ?) ?

Perhaps because that evolutionary process is the means through which the Ground comes to know itself fully? We should consider whether our perceptions of the world are evolving or that which gives rise to perception (consciousness) is evolving. If the latter, then we can certainly consider whether there is any purpose to the process.

No, it is the wishful "what if" thinking, nothing else !! Be careful

[AshvinP]

If we could, why would we have been fiddling with a perception instead, an inferior tool in comparison, for half a billion years of evolution (Cambrian explosion ?) ?

Perhaps because that evolutionary process is the means through which the Ground comes to know itself fully? We should consider whether our perceptions of the world are evolving or that which gives rise to perception (consciousness) is evolving. If the latter, then we can certainly consider whether there is any purpose to the process.

No, it is the wishful "what if" thinking, nothing else !! Be careful

Of what, God's wrath?

[Cleric K]

I don't understand, can you elaborate plz ?

OK. Before this and the things below, can make sense, one must make the effort to observe one's own thinking.

The thing is that normally, when we think about something, we experience the meaning of what we think but we are not conscious of the thinking process itself.

But we are perfectly capable of directing our attention to the actual thinking process.

Think of something simple, for example: "I think". But not as if you are thinking about your brain or some other external object but through livingly experiencing how you speak forth the verbal thought in your mind. You should actually speak the thought in your mind while being conscious of what you are doing, that is - observing the whole process. It helps if one thinks the words very slowly, as if trying to feel them as best as possible. This is the experience we are talking about. Now we not only have an experience of some floating words "I think" but we feel the very process, we feel how we give birth to the verbal thought. This "giving birth of the verbal thought" is what I refer to when I say "thinking". It is not some speculative metaphysical process. It is that actual experience of producing the thoughts. Just as color is a valid experience, so it is the observation of our own thinking. We are not postulating, not inventing anything. We are simply attaching the word "thinking" to the process that we are able to observe, in the same way as we can attach a word for a color that we perceive.

So here:

Where does that thought come from? From thinking.

this means exactly our ability to livingly experience how we produce the thought.
My point was that the axiom, which is a thought, appears in the contents of our consciousness only through this thinking process (even if we haven't been observing the process itself but only the end product - the thought of the axiom).

Meaning is not experienced but a subjective judgment ... meaning would be a part of epistemology or further down the line, not metaphysics

What I mean is something much more elementary. I don't divide the things at all into epistemology or metaphysics. We're talking of the most simple acts of cognition that require no philosophical background or systems to classify them. It's simple observation and describing what we observe.

For example, you look at an yellow surface. Even without explicitly thinking about it, you have the implicit understanding that you are seeing something yellow. If needed you can explicitly think "This surface is yellow". The idea of yellow is the thing that is experienced as meaning, as the understanding, as the thing that makes you be conscious of the fact that you're seeing yellow and not blue. To make this more clear, imagine that after looking at the yellow surface, you look away or close your eyes, and then think in your imagination about that yellow surface. Now we don't have the sensory perception, nevertheless we experience the same idea of yellow.
This is the key - there's one concept, one idea of yellow, that we can experience in relation to any yellow perception or even our own thought about yellow. When you look at many different yellow objects, they are separate but you can connect with them the same concept/idea of yellow. I can have different concepts for the different objects but have only one concept of yellow and I experience it in connection to any of the objects.

Thoughts are not perceived, they are in consciousness or meta-consciousness ... based on perception/cognition

They are perceived if you observe the thinking process. Think again of the verbal thought "I think". You actually hear your inner voice speaking forth the thought. This voice sounds like an auditory perception. What differs is that you are aware that this is not just some external perception or a random voice in your head but your own creation.

You are equivocating the terms mate. Thinking cannot exist. Ontology of existence must be based on sense data / concepts

I hope that the above already cleared this. Here "thinking exists" must be experienced again into this mode of self observation. You can look at my other post where I explain that.

[Mandibil]

I don't understand, can you elaborate plz ?

OK. Before this and the things below, can make sense, one must make the effort to observe one's own thinking.

The thing is that normally, when we think about something, we experience the meaning of what we think but we are not conscious of the thinking process itself.

But we are perfectly capable of directing our attention to the actual thinking process.

Think of something simple, for example: "I think". But not as if you are thinking about your brain or some other external object but through livingly experiencing how you speak forth the verbal thought in your mind. You should actually speak the thought in your mind while being conscious of what you are doing, that is - observing the whole process. It helps if one thinks the words very slowly, as if trying to feel them as best as possible. This is the experience we are talking about. Now we not only have an experience of some floating words "I think" but we feel the very process, we feel how we give birth to the verbal thought. This "giving birth of the verbal thought" is what I refer to when I say "thinking". It is not some speculative metaphysical process. It is that actual experience of producing the thoughts. Just as color is a valid experience, so it is the observation of our own thinking. We are not postulating, not inventing anything. We are simply attaching the word "thinking" to the process that we are able to observe, in the same way as we can attach a word for a color that we perceive.

So here:

Where does that thought come from? From thinking.

this means exactly our ability to livingly experience how we produce the thought.
My point was that the axiom, which is a thought, appears in the contents of our consciousness only through this thinking process (even if we haven't been observing the process itself but only the end product - the thought of the axiom).

Meaning is not experienced but a subjective judgment ... meaning would be a part of epistemology or further down the line, not metaphysics

What I mean is something much more elementary. I don't divide the things at all into epistemology or metaphysics. We're talking of the most simple acts of cognition that require no philosophical background or systems to classify them. It's simple observation and describing what we observe.

For example, you look at an yellow surface. Even without explicitly thinking about it, you have the implicit understanding that you are seeing something yellow. If needed you can explicitly think "This surface is yellow". The idea of yellow is the thing that is experienced as meaning, as the understanding, as the thing that makes you be conscious of the fact that you're seeing yellow and not blue. To make this more clear, imagine that after looking at the yellow surface, you look away or close your eyes, and then think in your imagination about that yellow surface. Now we don't have the sensory perception, nevertheless we experience the same idea of yellow.
This is the key - there's one concept, one idea of yellow, that we can experience in relation to any yellow perception or even our own thought about yellow. When you look at many different yellow objects, they are separate but you can connect with them the same concept/idea of yellow. I can have different concepts for the different objects but have only one concept of yellow and I experience it in connection to any of the objects.

Thoughts are not perceived, they are in consciousness or meta-consciousness ... based on perception/cognition

They are perceived if you observe the thinking process. Think again of the verbal thought "I think". You actually hear your inner voice speaking forth the thought. This voice sounds like an auditory perception. What differs is that you are aware that this is not just some external perception or a random voice in your head but your own creation.

You are equivocating the terms mate. Thinking cannot exist. Ontology of existence must be based on sense data / concepts

I hope that the above already cleared this. Here "thinking exists" must be experienced again into this mode of self observation. You can look at my other post where I explain that.

you have lost me, I am sorry. I appreciate your efforts

[Cleric K]

OK, no problem.

It all boils down to our ability to observe thinking - the voice in our head. If you can pronounce slowly "I think" in your mind and be able to observe what you are doing, you are basically observing your own thinking.

[Eugene I]

Cleric, I enjoyed your posts and fully agree, thank you. Once we introduce the concept of "qualia" (which is itself nothing else than a meaning of a thought and a product of meta cognition of out perceptions and thoughts), we can say that meanings are qualia of thoughts, just like visual experiences are qualia of visual phenomena of conscious experience. One of the most fundamental steps in our thinking process is to differentiate between various phenomena of conscious experience based on their qualitative content. E.g. we recognize that the content/qualia of visual perceptional experiences are qualitatively different from the content/qualia of thinking phenomena. A very common cognitive mistake it to confuse the meanings of the thoughts with "reality" and "truth" (whatever those are, even though for us they always remain the meanings and inferences of our thoughts) and not being able to differentiate between them. A meaning can never be fully equal to "truth" or "reality", because whatever the "reality" is, it is not a meaning. So, the meanings can only at best be mental representations of certain aspects reality. Even if we happen to experience the reality and truth in its fullness at some point in the future, our understanding of it will only be a meaning of a thought and not the truth/reality itself. So, we are only left with our ability to "reflect" the reality in the meanings of our thoughts and establish certain true/false criteria of how well these meanings reflect the reality and how accurately they describe it (and those criteria would be still only meanings of our thoughts).

[Mandibil]

It all boils down to our ability to observe thinking - the voice in our head. If you can pronounce slowly "I think" in your mind and be able to observe what you are doing, you are basically observing your own thinking.

Ok, that is an important aspect that may be a weakness in my presentation. Where is the "I" that has the experience ? Is it a part of the experience turned "inwards" and therefore inexperienceable (is that a word?). I am aware of it and I really have a hard time figuring that one out.. The "I" in the cogito so to say ... I would hate to have to go dualist