Criticism

[AshvinP]

How is the phenomenology you speak of not a metaphysics?

Phenomenology does not presuppose any first principles and try to deduce all other phenomenal manifestations from those. Rather it reasons only from the givens of 1st-person experience of phenomena. MAL with "raw instinctive consciousness", or "energy independent of consciousness", or any similar conception is not a given of reasoned experience.

met·a·phys·ics
/ˌmedəˈfiziks/
plural

1.
the branch of philosophy that deals with the first principles of things, including abstract concepts such as being, knowing, substance, cause, identity, time, and space:
"they would regard the question of the initial conditions for the universe as belonging to the realm of metaphysics or religion"

A relevant quote on this point:

Observation and thinking are the two points of departure for all the spiritual striving of man, in so far as he is conscious of such striving. The workings of common sense, as well as the most complicated scientific researches, rest on these two fundamental pillars of our spirit. Philosophers have started from various primary antitheses: idea and reality, subject and object, appearance and thing-in-itself, “I” and “Not-I”, idea and will, concept and matter, force and substance, the conscious and the unconscious. It is easy to show, however, that all these antitheses must be preceded by that of observation and thinking, this being for man the most important one.

Whatever principle we choose to lay down, we must either prove that somewhere we have observed it, or we must enunciate it in the form of a clear thought which can be re-thought by any other thinker. Every philosopher who sets out to discuss his fundamental principles must express them in conceptual form and thus use thinking. He therefore indirectly admits that his activity presupposes thinking. Whether thinking or something else is the chief factor in the evolution of the world will not be decided at this point. But that without thinking, the philosopher can gain no knowledge of such evolution, is clear from the start. In the occurrence of the world phenomena, thinking may play a minor part; but in the forming of a view about them, there can be no doubt that, its part is a leading one.

[JeffreyW]

After last night, I don’t know why I’m even bothering to respond to you, but experience of the world is not conjecture. It is that direct experience that distinguishes it from metaphysics. Seriously, you’re hopeless.

Also, other than Kastrup, there are quite a few "hopeless idiots" among well-known idealist academic philosophers who also do not share the belief in the existence of the physical world outside consciousness, here is some of them:
Donald Hoffman
Miri Albahari
Paul Marshall
Yujin Nagasawa
Khai Wager
Itai Shani
Joachim Kepler

And finally, one of the greatest philosophers of our times, David Chalmers:

When I was in graduate school, I recall hearing “One starts as a materialist, then one becomes
a dualist, then a panpsychist, and one ends up as an idealist”.1
I don’t know where this comes from,
but I think the idea was something like this. First, one is impressed by the successes of science,
endorsing materialism about everything and so about the mind. Second, one is moved by problem of consciousness to see a gap between physics and consciousness, thereby endorsing dualism,
where both matter and consciousness are fundamental. Third, one is moved by the inscrutability
of matter to realize that science reveals at most the structure of matter and not its underlying nature, and to speculate that this nature may involve consciousness, thereby endorsing panpsychism.
Fourth, one comes to think that there is little reason to believe in anything beyond consciousness
and that the physical world is wholly constituted by consciousness, thereby endorsing idealism.
Some recent strands in philosophical discussion of the mind–body problem have recapitulated
this progression: the rise of materialism in the 1950s and 1960s, the dualist response in the 1980s
and 1990s, the festival of panpsychism in the 2000s, and some recent stirrings of idealism.2
In my
own work, I have taken the first two steps and have flirted heavily with the third. In this paper I
want to examine the prospects for the fourth step: the move to idealism.

From "Idealism and the Mind-Body Problem"

First, you should look up the fallacy of argumentum ad verecundiam. Second, you are hopeless because you don’t understand the issues, not because of what you try to defend.

[JeffreyW]

Once conscious activity is delocalized from physical objects like the brain, then I see even less reason for you to consider your own lack of memory as evidence of anything about the existence of the underlying conscious activity. When you had no memory (except duration and continuity of self, as mentioned before), at a bare minumum, we know for certain that conscious activity was occurring through other living organisms (also without hard boundaries) and some, perhaps 'entangled' with yours, were having the experiences surrounding you that you won't remember after you wake up.

I am not sure what "it" is that you say is not worth considering. The mythic evidence, the intuition of duration and continuity of self, the evidence of evolving perception-cognition over the epochs of human history, higher cognition which perceives supersensible phenomena? If you specify, I could elaborate on the concrete experiential reasons the evidence should be considered seriously and deeply.

Also we should keep in mind our habit of thinking we have already thought of everything our own experiences can teach us. But, if that were true, we would never learn anything from revisiting our memories. We wouldn't have fields like depth psychology which can bring to light old subconscious memories and therefore new knowledge. Etc. It is again an artifice of naive realism and dualism which convinces us that, at any given moment, a chance cross-section of our experiential state from birth to death, we have figured out what is "worth considering" from our own experience. The unfortunate consequence of that is, we will never have motivation to reevaluate what we know from experience if we are assuming that at all times of our thinking life.

PS - I use "we" because I genuinely mean "we" - these are transpersonal habits of mind ubiquotous in the modern age, and not one of us, including myself, is immune to them. We only ward them off by constant vigilance which must be renewed afresh every time we set in to think about a philosophical issue (or ideally any issue at all).

I would never suggest we have thought of everything experience can teach us. Quite the opposite. My point was that we can only know what experience teaches us.

But it isn’t delocalized from the brain. Each individual brain has its own consciousness which entangles with the world, but that consciousness is only experienced within that brain. That conscious activity was occurring in other living organisms only shows that conscious is individuated, not cosmic. Each of those conscious entities had their own unique experience.

As for motivation, that is what occurs when we encounter puzzling things in our experience. At that point we can explore through further directed experience, or we can make up metaphysical stories to explain.

[Steve Petermann]

It seems to me that what is at issue concerns the domain of interest. To use quantum mechanics as an example, there is the "shut up and calculate" camp that doesn't seem to have an interest in deeper interpretations or, on the other hand, those who feel the need to delve deeper, form metaphysical hypotheses, or speculations. What establishes that domain of interest can have various factors. It may reflect an abhorrence for uncertainty or see speculations as a slippery slope into metaphysical extravagance. Others don't feel those constraints so much. There may also be psychological factors that incline one to rule in our out certain avenues of exploration.

If, however, the domain of interest includes existential concerns (what we care deeply about) then it would seem that some level of metaphysical speculation is necessary. Proximate causes or dynamics can offer some level of understanding about those concerns, but may also result in an uncomfortable sense as being inadequate. If only some reflections on ultimate causes will suffice, then it would seem metaphysics to some extent will be required. Empiricism offers data points to be considered for the proximate how and why but still leaves many questions unanswered. Why does the Born rule apply? Why does a certain quantum measurement occur when it does? These questions lead to the ultimate question of how reality is constituted. The answer to that question has a profound impact on existential concerns. Do we live in an autonomic universe or is there inherent intention involved? Do we live in a value-neutral universe or are the inherent values imbued? Is there, in some sense, a freedom of choice, or do we just autonomically do what is dictated by the laws of nature? Is the universe ultimately meaningful or is it meaningless with no purpose? These are questions that have been around for millennia, that if addressed, seem to require some speculation "beyond the physics".

If existential concerns are of any interest then I think at least some level of metaphysics will arise in any approach whether implicit or explicit. How far "down the rabbit hole" one may choose to go is an individual choice.

[AshvinP]

But it isn’t delocalized from the brain. Each individual brain has its own consciousness which entangles with the world, but that consciousness is only experienced within that brain. That conscious activity was occurring in other living organisms only shows that conscious is individuated, not cosmic. Each of those conscious entities had their own unique experience.

As for motivation, that is what occurs when we encounter puzzling things in our experience. At that point we can explore through further directed experience, or we can make up metaphysical stories to explain.

You seem to be using the 'entaglement' concept to avoid the more straightforward explanation that we exist within a unified, ever-evolving 'space' of shared imaginations and intuitions, which broadly explains everything from coherent communication to empathy. We know very well how a unified consciousness can encompass differing spatiotemporal perspectives, as that is how it manifests in our daily experience as well. Again, modern science makes clear the physical 'boundaries' between living organisms cannot be naively assumed as the 'containers' of consciousness. Consider the following:

But consider the following thought experiment. Imagine an extraterrestrial humanoid life form whose mode of visual recognition was based on the enumeration of the material components that make up particular [manifestations] of general types, rather than on the identification of the general types that are instantiated by particular [manifestations]. Imagine, further, that this alien lands on Earth at a particular location and encounters two dogs: a living dog and a robotic dog. The alien scans the two dogs, catalogues their material constitution for future identification, and returns home. A few years later, the alien returns to Earth to the same location and faces the two dogs it encountered in its first trip. Despite being in the presence of the same two dogs, the alien’s cognitive apparatus is such that he is only able to identify the robotic dog and not the living one. From the alien’s perspective, the living dog of the first trip has faded out of existence, and an entirely different living dog has taken its place. What this admittedly fanciful thought experiment is meant to illustrate is that, if one focuses on matter rather than on form and allows for a sufficiently extended period of time, the stream-like nature of macroscopic organisms becomes perfectly evident. The fact that this does not happen to be easily perceptible to us does not make it any less true or important.

- Everything Flows: Towards a Processual Philosophy of Science (2018)

re: motivation - the simple fact is that nothing will appear puzzling to us in the phenomenal world once we feel we have fully mined our experience for explanations. There is no reason to look for something deeper which naturally follows from our experience if we first assume that such an exploration is not possible, because again we feel we have exhausted the meaning of our experience. That is how I see the concepts of "energy" and "entaglement" currently functioning in your outlook.

[JeffreyW]

It seems to me that what is at issue concerns the domain of interest. To use quantum mechanics as an example, there is the "shut up and calculate" camp that doesn't seem to have an interest in deeper interpretations or, on the other hand, those who feel the need to delve deeper, form metaphysical hypotheses, or speculations. What establishes that domain of interest can have various factors. It may reflect an abhorrence for uncertainty or see speculations as a slippery slope into metaphysical extravagance. Others don't feel those constraints so much. There may also be psychological factors that incline one to rule in our out certain avenues of exploration.

If, however, the domain of interest includes existential concerns (what we care deeply about) then it would seem that some level of metaphysical speculation is necessary. Proximate causes or dynamics can offer some level of understanding about those concerns, but may also result in an uncomfortable sense as being inadequate. If only some reflections on ultimate causes will suffice, then it would seem metaphysics to some extent will be required. Empiricism offers data points to be considered for the proximate how and why but still leaves many questions unanswered. Why does the Born rule apply? Why does a certain quantum measurement occur when it does? These questions lead to the ultimate question of how reality is constituted. The answer to that question has a profound impact on existential concerns. Do we live in an autonomic universe or is there inherent intention involved? Do we live in a value-neutral universe or are the inherent values imbued? Is there, in some sense, a freedom of choice, or do we just autonomically do what is dictated by the laws of nature? Is the universe ultimately meaningful or is it meaningless with no purpose? These are questions that have been around for millennia, that if addressed, seem to require some speculation "beyond the physics".

If existential concerns are of any interest then I think at least some level of metaphysics will arise in any approach whether implicit or explicit. How far "down the rabbit hole" one may choose to go is an individual choice.

Quantum mechanics is the example I also often bring up because it is an example of one crisis we face in understanding. The Copenhagen Interpretation is deeply unsatisfying, but the only honest one. Entanglement and superposition give hints of an elemental realm we cannot even conceptualize. Having evolved to construct sense data into a coherent picture in space and time, we have learned over the past century that elemental reality lacks those features, which are merely our conditions of thought. 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.

So where does that leave us but in a very dissatisfied state with a choice to make? We can follow Bohr and ignore the problem. We can make up conjectures that are certain to be wrong because we have reached the threshold of our ability to represent. Or we can find a new way to explore the mystery non-metaphysical, i.e. esthetically.

It does come down psychology. Those such as Bohr and many in the sciences and analytic philosophy cannot stand messiness and the threat of things outside their ability to grasp and control. Others cannot stand the threat that comes with uncertainty and need to make up metaphysical explanations. The future, however, belongs to those who embrace the chaotic messiness and surf the waves of quantum fields.

[Eugene I]

First, you should look up the fallacy of argumentum ad verecundiam. Second, you are hopeless because you don’t understand the issues, not because of what you try to defend.

Perhaps I don't then please help me to understand. Let's take baby steps here and start from the scandal in philosophy started by Hume. Kant's transcendental arguments to confront it failed. What arguments or proofs then do you have to confront Hume's claim that we have no proof, either rational or experiential, that any external world exists outside the 1-st person perspective of our own consciousness? Next, even if such proof can be established, what is then a proof that such external world is "physical" and non-conscious?

[JeffreyW]

But it isn’t delocalized from the brain. Each individual brain has its own consciousness which entangles with the world, but that consciousness is only experienced within that brain. That conscious activity was occurring in other living organisms only shows that conscious is individuated, not cosmic. Each of those conscious entities had their own unique experience.

As for motivation, that is what occurs when we encounter puzzling things in our experience. At that point we can explore through further directed experience, or we can make up metaphysical stories to explain.

You seem to be using the 'entaglement' concept to avoid the more straightforward explanation that we exist within a unified, ever-evolving 'space' of shared imaginations and intuitions, which broadly explains everything from coherent communication to empathy. We know very well how a unified consciousness can encompass differing spatiotemporal perspectives, as that is how it manifests in our daily experience as well. Again, modern science makes clear the physical 'boundaries' between living organisms cannot be naively assumed as the 'containers' of consciousness. Consider the following:

But consider the following thought experiment. Imagine an extraterrestrial humanoid life form whose mode of visual recognition was based on the enumeration of the material components that make up particular [manifestations] of general types, rather than on the identification of the general types that are instantiated by particular [manifestations]. Imagine, further, that this alien lands on Earth at a particular location and encounters two dogs: a living dog and a robotic dog. The alien scans the two dogs, catalogues their material constitution for future identification, and returns home. A few years later, the alien returns to Earth to the same location and faces the two dogs it encountered in its first trip. Despite being in the presence of the same two dogs, the alien’s cognitive apparatus is such that he is only able to identify the robotic dog and not the living one. From the alien’s perspective, the living dog of the first trip has faded out of existence, and an entirely different living dog has taken its place. What this admittedly fanciful thought experiment is meant to illustrate is that, if one focuses on matter rather than on form and allows for a sufficiently extended period of time, the stream-like nature of macroscopic organisms becomes perfectly evident. The fact that this does not happen to be easily perceptible to us does not make it any less true or important.

- Everything Flows: Towards a Processual Philosophy of Science (2018)

re: motivation - the simple fact is that nothing will appear puzzling to us in the phenomenal world once we feel we have fully mined our experience for explanations. There is no reason to look for something deeper which naturally follows from our experience if we first assume that such an exploration is not possible, because again we feel we have exhausted the meaning of our experience. That is how I see the concepts of "energy" and "entaglement" currently functioning in your outlook.

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.

[JeffreyW]

First, you should look up the fallacy of argumentum ad verecundiam. Second, you are hopeless because you don’t understand the issues, not because of what you try to defend.

Perhaps I don't then please help me to understand. Let's take baby steps here and start from the scandal in philosophy started by Hume. Kant's transcendental arguments to confront it failed. What arguments or proofs then do you have to confront Hume's claim that we have no proof, either rational or experiential, that any external world exists outside the 1-st person perspective of our own consciousness? Next, even if such proof can be established, what is then a proof that such external world is "physical" and non-conscious?

Let’s take baby steps. Let’s start with what you think Kant’s transcendental arguments were and how they failed.

[Eugene I]

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.