Q1: Reality and its Appearance

[rezam06]

I greatly appreciate receiving your answer to the following question about analytical idealism.

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Q1: Whatever the reality of the outside world is (even if we accept that it is mental),
why should we assume that its appearance in our mind necessarily and
correctly mirror or correspond to what it (the outside world) really is?
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[Forrest]

If you follow the thinking of Bernardo Kastrup, his answer would be that the appearance of reality as it appears in our consciousness does NOT necessarily and correctly mirror how reality really is.

What we actually experience, according to BK, are images on our "dashboard of dials," i.e. like the instrument panel seen by a pilot flying in IFR conditions. There is a reality out there, independent of our perception and ontologically composed of mentation, but we can never know that reality in itself. This is analogous to Kant's phenomena and noumena, where phenomena are the appearances which constitute the our experience, and noumena are the things themselves, which constitute reality.

[rezam06]

Thank you very much Forrest.

See if the following makes sense.

The question is not why should we assume that what we see is the same as the reality of what is out there.
Whatever the things out there are in themselves (even if they are mental), when we make a distinction between things in themselves (noumena) and things as they appear to us (phenomena), as we do under Analytical Idealism, one might ask why should we assume that things as appears to us (“the images on our dashboard of dials”) necessarily and correctly correspond to or are the reflection of things in themselves?

[AshvinP]

Thank you very much Forrest.

See if the following makes sense.

The question is not why should we assume that what we see is not the reality of what is out there.
Whatever the things out there are in themselves (even if they are mental), when we make a distinction between things in themselves (noumena) and things as they appear to us (phenomena), as we do under Analytical Idealism, one might ask why should we assume that things as appears to us (“the images on our dashboard of dials”) necessarily and correctly correspond to or are the reflection of things in themselves?

The issue is in the very framing of the question, which implicitly imports a correspondence theory of truth. The way to avoid this and reason out the actual relations between percepts and our thinking concepts is here - https://rsarchive.org/Books/GA004/Engli ... 4_c05.html

For someone who believes that the whole perceived world is only an imagined one, a mental picture, and is in fact the effect upon my soul of things unknown to me, the real problem of knowledge is naturally concerned not with the mental pictures present only in the soul but with the things which are independent of us and which lie outside our consciousness. He asks: How much can we learn about these things indirectly, seeing that we cannot observe them directly? From this point of view, he is concerned not with the inner connection of his conscious percepts with one another but with their causes which transcend his consciousness and exist independently of him, since the percepts, in his opinion, disappear as soon as he turns his senses away from things. Our consciousness, on this view, works like a mirror from which the pictures of definite things disappear the moment its reflecting surface is not turned toward them. If, now, we do not see the things themselves but only their reflections, then we must learn indirectly about the nature of things by drawing conclusions from the behavior of the reflections. Modern science takes this attitude in that it uses percepts only as a last resort in obtaining information about the processes of matter which lie behind them, and which alone really “are.” If the philosopher, as critical idealist, admits real existence at all, then his search for knowledge through the medium of mental pictures is directed solely toward this existence. His interest skips over the subjective world of mental pictures and goes straight for what produces these pictures.
...
Similarly, once the philosopher is convinced that the given world consists of nothing but mental pictures, his interest is bound to switch at once from this world to the real soul which lies behind. The matter is more serious, however, for the adherent of illusionism who denies altogether the existence of an Ego-in-itself behind the mental pictures, or at least holds this Ego to be unknowable. We might very easily be led to such a view by the observation that, in contrast to dreaming, there is indeed the waking state in which we have the opportunity of seeing through our dreams and referring them to the real relations of things, but that there is no state of the self which is related similarly to our waking conscious life. Whoever takes this view fails to see that there is, in fact, something which is related to mere perceiving in the way that our waking experience is related to our dreaming. This something is thinking.
...
The first step, however, which we take beyond this standpoint can be only this, that we ask how thinking is related to percept. It makes no difference whether or no the percept, in the shape given to me, exists continuously before and after my forming a mental picture; if I want to assert anything whatever about it, I can do so only with the help of thinking. If I assert that the world is my mental picture, I have enunciated the result of an act of thinking. and if my thinking is not applicable to the world, then this result is false. Between a percept and every kind of assertion about it there intervenes thinking.

The reason why we generally overlook thinking in our consideration of things has already been given (see Chapter 3). It lies in the fact that our attention is concentrated only on the object we are thinking about, but not at the same time on the thinking itself. The naïve consciousness, therefore, treats thinking as something which has nothing to do with things, but stands altogether aloof from them and contemplates them. The picture which the thinker makes of the phenomena of the world is regarded not as something belonging to the things but as existing only in the human head. The world is complete in itself without this picture. It is finished and complete with all its substances and forces, and of this ready-made world man makes a picture. Whoever thinks thus need only be asked one question. What right have you to declare the world to be complete without thinking? Does not the world produce thinking in the heads of men with the same necessity as it produces the blossom on a plant? Plant a seed in the earth. It puts forth root and stem, it unfolds into leaves and blossoms. Set the plant before yourself. It connects itself, in your mind, with a definite concept. Why should this concept belong any less to the whole plant than leaf and blossom? You say the leaves and blossoms exist quite apart from a perceiving subject, but the concept appears only when a human being confronts the plant. Quite so. But leaves and blossoms also appear on the plant only if there is soil in which the seed can be planted, and light and air in which the leaves and blossoms can unfold. Just so the concept of a plant arises when a thinking consciousness approaches the plant.

[lorenzop]

If you used a simple pin-hole camera and captured images - these captured images line up very closely to what you actually percieve with your own eyes. Other recording devices (audio as well) confirm this. I think it's reasonable to discard the 'dashboard theory' - and simply commit to gross objects are as they appear.
However, Physics\Chemistry reveal that reality consists of layers, layers of increasing subtly - gross level of objects, molecular level, atomic level, sub-atomic, etc. . . . It is reasonable to assert that Physics is no where near discovering the subtlest of creation (Sattva\Meaning\etc?).
So, the apparent gross level of objects is effectively only a patina - a greasy coating - so to suggest that gross objects are as they appear isn't really granting much, and is missing out on all the tasty 'layers' approaching a unified field.

[rezam06]

The issue is in the very framing of the question, which implicitly imports a correspondence theory of truth. The way to avoid this and reason out the actual relations between percepts and our thinking concepts is here - https://rsarchive.org/Books/GA004/Engli ... 4_c05.html

Thank you so much AshvinP. I will review and ponder the content you provided.

[rezam06]

If you used a simple pin-hole camera and captured images - these captured images line up very closely to what you actually percieve with your own eyes. Other recording devices (audio as well) confirm this. I think it's reasonable to discard the 'dashboard theory' - and simply commit to gross objects are as they appear.
However, Physics\Chemistry reveal that reality consists of layers, layers of increasing subtly - gross level of objects, molecular level, atomic level, sub-atomic, etc. . . . It is reasonable to assert that Physics is no where near discovering the subtlest of creation (Sattva\Meaning\etc?).
So, the apparent gross level of objects is effectively only a patina - a greasy coating - so to suggest that gross objects are as they appear isn't really granting much, and is missing out on all the tasty 'layers' approaching a unified field.

Agreed. Thank you Lorenzop.