Criticism

[Eugene I]

I have a sense where this is going, so I will just say now that there is no problem with abstractions as such. This also speaks to Dana's post above about writing and representation. The problem comes in when we forget that we have abstracted from the phenomena and assume the abstractions themselves are adequate explanations for the phenomena. So if some reading what I am writing right now look at the words and think to themselves, "these words explain why meaning arises, because the appearance of the word-forms stimulates my mental activity to create meaning, and naturally someone else's mental activity will create different meaning", then they have reified the abstraction.

Ashvin, this discussion is important enough to deserve a separate thread, so I started it here

[Martin_]

"Thought forms the alters" - this is what I call abstract to the maximum (even beyond BK's view). Think of it this way - where can we possibly go from there to get a better, more precise understanding of what's actually happening in the development of sentient living beings? If you have a suggestion, then I will consider it, but I suspect there is nowhere to go.

So you're equating something being useless with something being abstract? I don't get it.

Yes that is a great definition of abstraction (in the sense I am using it to critique BK's idealsim) - something which, whether true or not, cannot possibly have practical consequences for us.

Then you're not using the word the same way most people are and I suggest that you re-evaluate your usage of the term. Being a philosophy board, i'd gues you'd probably get some quite material pushback if you posit an identity btw. `abstract` and `useless`.

My initial reaction to the text `this is what I call abstract to the maximum ` is: "ok, so what. what's the problem with abstract?"
My initial reaction to the text `this is what I call useless to the maximum` would be something like "ok. fair enough. I can roll with that,"

Now , sure, had i read all your essays, and Cleric's, and managed to finish off PoF, i might not have had that reaction, but, you're responding to Ashvin, right? which is someone you know hasn't read PoF.

Anyway. all in good faith. I seem to be on some kind of eternal personal crusade against sub-optimal inter-subjective (I'm not a dualist!!) communication, so my pet peeves surface now and then. Take it with a grain of salt.

[JeffreyW]

Kastrup's philosophy is a model originally derived from direct human experience. Our experience tells us that we experience a flow of conscious phenomena in our own minds. However, we also learn from experience of communication with other people that they also have a similarly structured flow of phenomena in their minds, but in most cases these flows are different and do not overlap, even though there is a continuous communication and interconnection going on between them. There is a certain interconnected fragmentation of the total flow of conscious phenomena that we all observe together. These are bare experiential facts. What we also do by utilizing our ability of rational and intuitive thinking is that we reflect the facts of experience and create ideal interpretations or models ("theories") relevant to the facts of experience that would describe them with a certain level of accuracy. The purpose of such reflective modeling is very practical - it help us to make sense of the experience and predict its outcomes depending on our decisions and acts of will. In a way, a good reflective model should comply with both Russel's "Correspondence Theory of Truth" and Charles Pierce's "Pragmatic Theory of Truth". If the experience changes or expands, the theory should also adopt to the changing experience (or to be replaced with a different theory). So, as long as a theory is always related to the relevant experience, it is not an abstraction. However, it becomes an abstraction when it is "abstracted" from the concrete experience and becomes a system of ideas on its own. A theory may start as relevant to an experience but later become an abstraction, or it may be made up as an abstraction from start and stay irrelevant to any experience, or it may later become relevant to experience. For example, the Riemann geometry was first developed as an abstract math model, but later was found to be relevant as a basis for an accurate General Relativity model.

Eugene,

I can't even type out these explanations to you anymore, because I think it is giving me arthritis. The underlined are pure abstract assumptions. The bold are explicit dualisms which flow from those flawed assumptions. Your 2nd paragraph is an accurate summation of why BK's philosophy is rooted in abstractions which are not first derived from experience, but instead uses analogy of DID to explain it's own abstractions. All of it is abstract analytic philosophy and not phenomenology, in the way either of those terms have ever been used in the history of philosophy. And correspondence theory of truth has not, is not, and will never be compatible with pragmatic understanding of truth.

Is it possible you and Mark simply don't know as much about Western philosophy and German idealism as you think you do? That is a good theory to explain why you consistently get these things wrong. It is supported by the evidence you both admit to never having read much of the philosophy. And your forever keeping of Thinking in the blind spot is what leads you to state and restate various versions of dualism in practically every comment without realizing it. It is not frustrating that this is done, because many many people do it, actually we all do it at various times, but it's frustrating that you won't ever consider the possibility that you are not the sole exception.

I'm fast becoming convinced that we need to get out of this highly restrictive, disjointed textbound format, if we're ever going to make any progress on these questions of epistemology, and the premise that we should be relying only on what we know by experience, rather than abstract speculation, whether idealist or physicalist, because by its very nature this textbound communication is limited to interpreting a written representation of our thoughts, feelings willings, etc, with no real-time elaboration or collaboration that might allow for more clarity. So I'm contemplating the possibility of taking metakastrup into zoom-mode, beginning with an experiment of a small number of us getting together on JW's youtube channel to parse out our various takes on it. To begin with, perhaps no more than 4 or 5, otherwise it just becomes too much input to keep it comprehensible. So anyone else up for that?

I will gladly host it whenever you want.

[Soul_of_Shu]

I will gladly host it whenever you want.

Thanks Jeffrey ... So far no volunteers, but we'll give it some time to sink in.

[Mark Tetzner]

open a new thread, post his 2 vids in it, announce the meeting, then it could fly. or i can do it if u want me to.

[Soul_of_Shu]

open a new thread, post his 2 vids in it, announce the meeting, then it could fly. or i can do it if u want me to.

Well, it's most likely going to be those participating in this thread who might be interested. But sure, I can post a separate invitation, if we get no takers here.

[Mark Tetzner]

sure. i could attend, just without video. but I think the futility-problem pertains, so i would probably not attend to make a case for anything and just listen in. JWs Hoelderlin-assignment is overdue though. there is nothing wrong with you and one more person going for it, together with JW.

[Eugene I]

not me

[Martin_]

re my previous post:
" you're responding to Ashvin, right?"
should be
you're responding to Eugene, right?

[JeffreyW]

Appearances can be deceiving which, with some thought, can be corrected, for example, the sun appearing to revolve around the earth. For us (most of us), some energy appears to us as having no conscious aspect. But this was not necessarily always the case. As consciousness evolves, so do appearances. We are now naive dualists. A case has been made that once people were naive idealists. For more on this see my essay Idealism vs. Common Sense.

And those earlier mistakes were only resolved from further observations, not metaphysical speculation. If we ever have observable evidence to support consciousness in non-living things, I will then reconsider my view. Until then, I have no reason to seriously consider such speculation.

Just checking if you read my essay. The second half (addressing the 'why' question) does engage in metaphysical speculation, so feel free to ignore it, but the first half does not.

I just read it and found it very interesting. Rather than just do a quick response, I would like to take the time your essay deserves in responding.