Philosophical Speculations

Astra052 wrote: ↑Sat Jun 12, 2021 4:16 pm Honestly I don't know why we have to choose between mental or physical. I've been partial to a neutral monism similar to what Michael Silberstein proposes where the ontological primitive is "presence". He goes into lengths describing what that presence is but I guess I'd describe it as a sort of existence without qualia. It's that experience you get in deep meditation or during a psychedelic breakthrough where you become nothing and everything but you can't describe what it is "like" to be part of it. I think the seperations into things and dualities is a cognitive trick that works to make us a more successful species. This may sound like idealism but I wouldn't say everything has mind or is made of mind. A rock or any other seemingly inanimate thing we have probably isn't generated by the M@L in my opinion but some other deeper level of existance. I wouldn't call this deeper level as consciousness and it certainly isn't physical, it's a sort of subjectivity without identity or qualia appearing to it. My issue with the M@L is that I don't understand how an entity of pure consciousness could create all this stuff or why it would seperate into alters. It seems more likely to me that the unifying primitive that produces all the relations that form our physical world is something neutral. It is neither physical nor mental because our cognitive function to seperate "things" doesn't exist in it. Does it have the qualities of something both mental and physical? Yes but it's neither. Perhaps a good anology for what I'm proposing is the Tao. Both sides exist inside each other but are also distinct, it's when you see them as unified you get the real view. To me this is what mystical and psychedelic experiences provide.

Astra052 wrote: ↑Sun Jun 13, 2021 12:46 am

Ashvin wrote: We have discussed this concept of "no qualia presence" in relation to many different topics on this forum, so I won't rehash all of the philosophical issues for now, but I will just say that this concept should disappear under the weight of the fact that all experience has meaning. When we speak of deep meditation or psychedelic experience, even if we can never convey the essential experience in words, we are still presupposing the fact that it has some specified meaning which is shared across those who experience it. That is clear from the fact that people actually reference these experiences to make philosophical, scientific and spiritual arguments. We could say that meaning is not "qualia", but I see no reason to do so. So there is no experience without qualia, and therefore there is no reason to replace idealism with the "neutral monism" Silberstein proposes.

If qualia=experience then sure I agree but I don't define qualia that way. I would define quaila as the various things that appear to us in consciousness like smells, emotions, tastes, etc. Is this a useless definition? Perhaps, but I think its very hard to accurately describe that "oneness" feeling of a trip or intense meditation without bending terms a little bit. I would say it didn't have qualia and it only had qualia once I was out of it. Qualia is reportable, if you're eternally in the present moment then there is nothing to report, it is always happening. I think you understand what I'm trying to get across even if we don't agree on exact semantics.

AshvinP wrote: ↑Sun Jun 13, 2021 1:06 am

Astra052 wrote: ↑Sun Jun 13, 2021 12:46 am

Ashvin wrote: We have discussed this concept of "no qualia presence" in relation to many different topics on this forum, so I won't rehash all of the philosophical issues for now, but I will just say that this concept should disappear under the weight of the fact that all experience has meaning. When we speak of deep meditation or psychedelic experience, even if we can never convey the essential experience in words, we are still presupposing the fact that it has some specified meaning which is shared across those who experience it. That is clear from the fact that people actually reference these experiences to make philosophical, scientific and spiritual arguments. We could say that meaning is not "qualia", but I see no reason to do so. So there is no experience without qualia, and therefore there is no reason to replace idealism with the "neutral monism" Silberstein proposes.

If qualia=experience then sure I agree but I don't define qualia that way. I would define quaila as the various things that appear to us in consciousness like smells, emotions, tastes, etc. Is this a useless definition? Perhaps, but I think its very hard to accurately describe that "oneness" feeling of a trip or intense meditation without bending terms a little bit. I would say it didn't have qualia and it only had qualia once I was out of it. Qualia is reportable, if you're eternally in the present moment then there is nothing to report, it is always happening. I think you understand what I'm trying to get across even if we don't agree on exact semantics.

But what is a smell, taste, sound, etc. without meaning? That is how we differentiate qualia and relate them to each other, right? I think that meanings are inseparably tied up with the bare percepts from sense organs, so I consider them "qualia" as well. Yet even if the bare percepts are removed by the mystical state, there is still meaning to the experience. I am pretty sure I know what you are trying to get across and my response is not simply a nitpick. There is a notion that pure "presence" or "experience" without ideal content is possible, and not only possible but the most fundamental experience of Reality, and that usually leads to all sorts of attempts to squeeze ideation and ideal content out of the picture of what is essential to our spiritual growth. It leads to things like "let's stop talking about idealism and just talk about 'neutral monism'" (I am not quoting you here but just what I imagine someone like Silberstein saying). I know you don't really think philosophy is bound up with spirituality in that manner, but I definitely do.

Astra052 wrote: ↑Sun Jun 13, 2021 12:35 pm

AshvinP wrote: ↑Sun Jun 13, 2021 1:06 am

Astra052 wrote: ↑Sun Jun 13, 2021 12:46 am
If qualia=experience then sure I agree but I don't define qualia that way. I would define quaila as the various things that appear to us in consciousness like smells, emotions, tastes, etc. Is this a useless definition? Perhaps, but I think its very hard to accurately describe that "oneness" feeling of a trip or intense meditation without bending terms a little bit. I would say it didn't have qualia and it only had qualia once I was out of it. Qualia is reportable, if you're eternally in the present moment then there is nothing to report, it is always happening. I think you understand what I'm trying to get across even if we don't agree on exact semantics.

But what is a smell, taste, sound, etc. without meaning? That is how we differentiate qualia and relate them to each other, right? I think that meanings are inseparably tied up with the bare percepts from sense organs, so I consider them "qualia" as well. Yet even if the bare percepts are removed by the mystical state, there is still meaning to the experience. I am pretty sure I know what you are trying to get across and my response is not simply a nitpick. There is a notion that pure "presence" or "experience" without ideal content is possible, and not only possible but the most fundamental experience of Reality, and that usually leads to all sorts of attempts to squeeze ideation and ideal content out of the picture of what is essential to our spiritual growth. It leads to things like "let's stop talking about idealism and just talk about 'neutral monism'" (I am not quoting you here but just what I imagine someone like Silberstein saying). I know you don't really think philosophy is bound up with spirituality in that manner, but I definitely do.

I would say philosophy is totally bound up with spirituality becuase philosophy has the ability to take phenomonology seriously. I do consider myself to be a spiritual person, I only get hesitant when spirituality and empirical science are linked too deeply. I understand what you're saying and it's not that I disagree with the points you're making here but I have a harder problem figuring out how M@L produces the world we see today. It's difficult for me to conceive how consciousness produced the big bang, quantum mechanics, and the average "physical" world we see today. Personally I find it much more likely that there truly is only one thing but its neither just physical nor mental. It has the qualities of both but to seperate them or take one as more fundamental than the other leaves an explanatory gap I think. It's what led materialism to the hard problem and I think it's what leads idealism into the problem of how anything got like this. I will say I think idealism is a better explanation than materialism and has less problems explaining the facts of our everyday expereince without explaining it away like materialism has to with consciousness. But I don't think idealism has anything convincing to say right now about the stuff we call "matter". After listening to people like Wheeler, D'Espagnat, Silberstein, Russell (occassionally), and many others I find the idea of neutral monism to be far more acceptable for the time being.