Philosophical Speculations

Eugene I wrote: ↑Thu Nov 18, 2021 5:33 pm

JeffreyW wrote: ↑Thu Nov 18, 2021 5:28 pm Let’s take baby steps. Let’s start with what you think Kant’s transcendental arguments were and how they failed.

I'm the dumb one here, I dunno. So please take one of them that you think is successful and demonstrate how can it be used to prove the existence of the physical non-conscious world outside your own consciousness.

You pick one since it is your claim, not mine.

JeffreyW wrote: ↑Thu Nov 18, 2021 5:35 pm You pick one since it is your claim, not mine.

You claim the existence of something: that there exists an external non-conscious physical world outside your consciousness. When the existence of something is claimed, it has to be either proven or declared as a conjecture. If you can undeniably prove it then it will become a universal truth that we all will have to accept and abandon our idealist positions. If you cannot prove it, then it's only our conjecture or a belief of preference. The burden to prove it is on your side.

Eugene I wrote: ↑Thu Nov 18, 2021 5:44 pm

JeffreyW wrote: ↑Thu Nov 18, 2021 5:35 pm You pick one since it is your claim, not mine.

You claim the existence of something: that there exists an external non-conscious physical world outside your consciousness. When the existence of something is claimed, it has to be either proven or declared as a conjecture. If you can undeniably prove it then it will become a universal truth that we all will have to accept and abandon our idealist positions. If you cannot prove it, then it's only our conjecture or a belief of preference. The burden to prove it is on your side.

I make no claim at all other than that I have no reason at all to accept the claim of universal consciousness. I note you had no idea what Kant had actually argued or its effectiveness. I also remain amused at your false assumption that I am a Kantian.

JeffreyW wrote: ↑Thu Nov 18, 2021 5:52 pm I make no claim at all other than that I have no reason at all to accept the claim of universal consciousness. I note you had not idea what Kant had actually argued or its effectiveness. I also remain amused at your false assumption that I am a Kantian.

Fine, nobody forces or expects you to accept the claim of universal consciousness. This is only a conjecture and belief that we can not undeniably prove in a scientific and philosophical way at our current human state, and everyone is free to accept such belief or not. That does not mean that some of us might have 1-st-person-perspective experiences providing us with personal experiential evidences to support our claim. On the other hand, if you make no claim and have no proof to support your view of the existence of the physical non-conscious world, then we equally have no reason to accept such view. Then this is basically the end of discussion: we just remain with our beliefs and views of choice and agree to disagree.

The Kantian arguments are irrelevant here, I was just asking you to provide any possible arguments or proofs to defend your view, be it based on Kant's arguments or not, but you refused to give any.

JeffreyW wrote: ↑Thu Nov 18, 2021 4:38 pm That allows for no possibility of interpreting a realm that rebels against those conditions. Anything we say about quantum reality or what existed prior to the Big Bang is bound to be wrong because it reduces what exceeds our ability to conceptualize to our conditions of thought.

This brings up the issue of epistemology. The question is, are our conceptualizations inadequate? Most certainly. We creatures evolved within a certain framework and as such conceptualize accordingly. However, is there no element of truth to those conceptualizations? Philosophers have said that "to know is to participate in". If we participate in ultimate reality, perhaps we have some sense of that reality, how ever inadequate. We use whatever conceptual schemes we have, knowing they are inadequate. If we participate in the metaphysical, then perhaps we can also metaphorize that accordingly while being open to further modification as new experiences and information come in.

JeffreyW wrote: ↑Thu Nov 18, 2021 4:38 pm Or we can find a new way to explore the mystery non-metaphysical, i.e. esthetically.

If we cannot have an accurate conceptual sense of ultimate reality then even esthetic sensibilities would also be suspect. After all, our esthetic sense can't be divorced from our conceptual schemes within the same mind. Could you say more about what you mean by non-metaphysical esthetic explorations?

JeffreyW wrote: ↑Thu Nov 18, 2021 4:38 pm The future, however, belongs to those who embrace the chaotic messiness and surf the waves of quantum fields.

What does that mean?

JeffreyW wrote: ↑Thu Nov 18, 2021 5:27 pm Why would a unified field of shared imaginations be more straightforward? It reminds me of when I was 15 and engrossed in Teilhard de Chardin’s Noosphere. There is a a sense of “Mitstimmung”, which plays off the word for mood but really is more like sympathetic vibrations of voicings. But our sympathetic voicings with other means multiple consciousnesses. I cannot be with myself, but only with other individual consciousnesses. Perhaps there is a physical entanglement that place, but that doesn’t mean we resolve into one consciousness. Each individual brain experiences in its own way. We can share our imaginations and feelings, but it is never complete sharing and each of us only directly experiences on our own.

I would never feel I have mined everything, and mystery is what I seek and celebrate. But I resist making up metaphysical tales, which only reduces the mystery to error.

We should resist reifying the shared 'space' into spatiotemporal concepts, just as we should resist that for "individuated consciousness". These are all visual analogies for a fundamentally space-free and time-free Reality. The question is whether modern science gives us any reason to continue assuming hard physical 'bounadries' for any phenomena we perceive, including living organisms. I don't think you have addressed my assertion that it has progressively given us reasons to declare all such assumptions false.

We can't arbitrarily stop considering the results (not interpretations) of modern science when they start to undermine our previously held concepts about "individual brains" and what not. For ex., we know there are at least two polar opposite perpsectives existing within our unified local cognition, which is reflected in (or generated by, in the materialist view) the left and right hemispheres of the brain. I say the materialist account for LH-RH differentiaton makes very little sense when tested against our experience and reason. For one thing, it only allows for major qualitative cognitive transformations over millions of years, while we have evidence these occurred over the last 3,000 years. All of these data points need to be reasoned through carefully if we want to proceed only from experience without assumptions or arbitrary cutoffs.

Eugene I wrote: ↑Thu Nov 18, 2021 6:14 pm

JeffreyW wrote: ↑Thu Nov 18, 2021 5:52 pm I make no claim at all other than that I have no reason at all to accept the claim of universal consciousness. I note you had not idea what Kant had actually argued or its effectiveness. I also remain amused at your false assumption that I am a Kantian.

Fine, nobody forces or expects you to accept the claim of universal consciousness. This is only a conjecture and belief that we can not undeniably prove in a scientific and philosophical way at our current human state, and everyone is free to accept such belief or not. That does not mean that some of us might have 1-st-person-perspective experiences providing us with personal experiential evidences to support our claim. On the other hand, if you make no claim and have no proof to support your view of the existence of the physical non-conscious world, then we equally have no reason to accept such view. Then this is basically the end of discussion: we just remain with our beliefs and views of choice and agree to disagree.

The Kantian arguments are irrelevant here, I was just asking you to provide any possible arguments or proofs to defend your view, be it based on Kant's arguments or not, but you refused to give any.

I would point to your implicit belief in physical reality every time you use your computer to respond. More to the point, I have criticized the arguments given for cosmic consciousness and you (and Kastrup) continually evade those criticisms. You even went to the ridiculous length of denying that Kastrup’s resorting to “burn ATP” having anything to do with energy.

Well, I can see now that there is a reason why Kastrup does not want to answer your arguments and avoids talking to you.

Steve Petermann wrote: ↑Thu Nov 18, 2021 6:15 pm

JeffreyW wrote: ↑Thu Nov 18, 2021 4:38 pm That allows for no possibility of interpreting a realm that rebels against those conditions. Anything we say about quantum reality or what existed prior to the Big Bang is bound to be wrong because it reduces what exceeds our ability to conceptualize to our conditions of thought.

This brings up the issue of epistemology. The question is, are our conceptualizations inadequate? Most certainly. We creatures evolved within a certain framework and as such conceptualize accordingly. However, is there no element of truth to those conceptualizations? Philosophers have said that "to know is to participate in". If we participate in ultimate reality, perhaps we have some sense of that reality, how ever inadequate. We use whatever conceptual schemes we have, knowing they are inadequate. If we participate in the metaphysical, then perhaps we can also metaphorize that accordingly while being open to further modification as new experiences and information come in.

JeffreyW wrote: ↑Thu Nov 18, 2021 4:38 pm Or we can find a new way to explore the mystery non-metaphysical, i.e. esthetically.

If we cannot have an accurate conceptual sense of ultimate reality then even esthetic sensibilities would also be suspect. After all, our esthetic sense can't be divorced from our conceptual schemes within the same mind. Could you say more about what you mean by non-metaphysical esthetic explorations?

JeffreyW wrote: ↑Thu Nov 18, 2021 4:38 pm The future, however, belongs to those who embrace the chaotic messiness and surf the waves of quantum fields.

What does that mean?

Esthetic knowledge precedes conceptual knowledge, and in reality is how we generally go through life. We need to pay more attention to it. What conceptual scheme do you get from a Beethoven symphony?

Non-metaphysical exploration resides in the present experience and what we can learn from it without resorting to anything outside experience. What Heidegger calls poetic thought, or Wittgenstein means by “pointing”.

I use surfing the quantum waves as a metaphor for the third psychological attitude I listed, as opposed to the prissiness of science or analytical philosophy driven to reduce reality to what it can manage in its puny grasp, and the fearfulness of metaphysics to experience the excitement and danger of the world as it is. Instead hold on tight and take the ride. You really have no choice anyway since you can’t really hide from reality. As Nietzsche knew, music was for playing and dancing, nor analyzing, The irrationality of quantum waves are for surfing, not praying to, sheltering from, or imagining to be different. It leads to a different sort of knowledge, but the one that teaches us who we are and our place in the universe,.

Eugene I wrote: ↑Thu Nov 18, 2021 6:40 pm Well, I can see now that there is a reason why Kastrup does not want to answer your arguments and avoids talking to you.

Well, yes. The same as yours: inability.