Philosophical Speculations

First time poster. Not sure if this is the correct thread, but I have a question.

How does idealism reconcile with the apparent beginning of the universe? If I understand Bernardo’s position correctly, matter is the appearance of Mind’s mentation as experienced from the outside by alters. Would we then infer that Mind also began 13.8 billion years ago and has evolved to its present state? Or alternately, does idealism posit the preexistence of a transcendent consciousness within which the present observed universe exists? The latter concept would seem to be very close to the theistic explanation of existence.

Hello Jim. According to analytical idealism, dissociated humans make sense of the universe as beginning with the big bang in space and time, because space and time are our cognitive scaffolding. In reality, all is unfolding in a present moment (you experience memories in the present and anticipate the future in the present). All happenings in the universe are in reality continuously present as the thought processes or dreams of Mind-at-Large.

Jimv303 wrote: ↑Mon Apr 12, 2021 1:18 am First time poster. Not sure if this is the correct thread, but I have a question.

How does idealism reconcile with the apparent beginning of the universe? If I understand Bernardo’s position correctly, matter is the appearance of Mind’s mentation as experienced from the outside by alters. Would we then infer that Mind also began 13.8 billion years ago and has evolved to its present state? Or alternately, does idealism posit the preexistence of a transcendent consciousness within which the present observed universe exists? The latter concept would seem to be very close to the theistic explanation of existence.

BK gets into this in More Than Allegory, chapter 6, titled Deconstructing Truth, in referring to the cognitive 'big bang' ~ which, as Ben alludes to, is not an event that occurred umpteen billion years ago, but can only ever be occurring in the only time there actually is ... the ever-present now.

Jimv303 wrote: ↑Mon Apr 12, 2021 1:18 am First time poster. Not sure if this is the correct thread, but I have a question.

How does idealism reconcile with the apparent beginning of the universe? If I understand Bernardo’s position correctly, matter is the appearance of Mind’s mentation as experienced from the outside by alters. Would we then infer that Mind also began 13.8 billion years ago and has evolved to its present state? Or alternately, does idealism posit the preexistence of a transcendent consciousness within which the present observed universe exists? The latter concept would seem to be very close to the theistic explanation of existence.

You will find different views on this, as idealism has different meanings to different people. The term itself only started with Kant as far as I'm aware, but many if not most philosophies before Descartes were essentially forms of idealism. So I am a theist, but I don't think matter is fundamentally different from mind. My best guess is that god made a space within himself , some kind of formless plane of unknown dimensionality, which naturally (or by design) is a substance we may as well call mind, but which scripture calls "the waters". 'Then' a creation 'event' (possibly 13.8 billions years ago) caused space and time to emerge within this plane, maybe as a result of, or followed by, the emergence of forms (shaped by divine ideas). These forms then represent to each other as matter, as an interaction.

As an overall picture this is very different from Analytic Idealism, which sees nothing as more fundamental than this plane (which is usually seen as eternal, almost by necessity if there is nothing more fundamental). But at the immediate level - such as the stuff that science investigates - it's not very different at all.

Many thanks for the thoughtful comments. I have taken Soul of Shu’s advice and have begun to reread Chapter 6 of More Than Allegory. BK presents some very difficult concepts there and I’m not sure I completely follow his logic. Even if we stipulate that all events unfold in consciousness and that there is no reality beyond the (ineffably brief) present instant, I’m not sure that this disposes of the notion of time. It seems to me that a logical possibility is that universal consciousness (let’s call it Mind for short) can evolve, rather than necessarily manifesting all outcomes simultaneously. And would not time exist as the measurement of changes of state in a system?

Positing the “past” as essentially a myth used to account for the present seems a bit evasive, as though some critical factor was not considered. I can’t help thinking of Zeno’s Paradox. The arrow must travel halfway to the target, then a quarter of the distance further, then an eighth and so on. Thus logically it can never arrive. But it does. The problem lies with the logic, not the empirical observation.

BK addresses some very deep issues in that chapter and I would not presume to hastily contest his conclusions. Moreover, I haven’t finished my rereading. But the material on truth and time does not resonate with me as strongly as some of the other precepts of idealism.