Did Bernardo change his theory?

[Forrest]

New member here . . .

For those of you more familiar with the development of Bernardo's concept of Analytic Idealism, I have a question:

In his earlier YouTube video appearances, he talks about our phenomenal experience in the world as representing reality as it really exists; i.e. color of red, the taste of chocolate, etc. all being how the world really is. The idea expressed would be consistent with the more traditional Idealism as expressed by Bishop Berkeley and others. This is in contrast to the materialist representation of reality as being more like an abstract mathematical equation devoid of the qualities associated with thought and perception as we experience them.

In more recent years, however, he seems to follow Donald Hoffman's idea that our conscious experience of the world is like a "dashboard of dials" a pilot sees when flying in IFR weather (actually, an "instrument panel" would be a more accurate aviation term). In other words, what we see is not reality itself, but an evolutionary designed, limited representation thereof. Much like in physicalism, there is a reality out there that we can never know in itself.

So my question is when, and why, did Bernardo make this shift in his thought process? I have not yet run across a segment in any of his writings or video appearances where his discusses this change in perspective.

Can anyone shed light on this difference?

Thanks, Forrest

[Lou Gold]

New member here . . .

For those of you more familiar with the development of Bernardo's concept of Analytic Idealism, I have a question:

In his earlier YouTube video appearances, he talks about our phenomenal experience in the world as representing reality as it really exists; i.e. color of red, the taste of chocolate, etc. all being how the world really is. The idea expressed would be consistent with the more traditional Idealism as expressed by Bishop Berkeley and others. This is in contrast to the materialist representation of reality as being more like an abstract mathematical equation devoid of the qualities associated with thought and perception as we experience them.

In more recent years, however, he seems to follow Donald Hoffman's idea that our conscious experience of the world is like a "dashboard of dials" a pilot sees when flying in IFR weather (actually, an "instrument panel" would be a more accurate aviation term). In other words, what we see is not reality itself, but an evolutionary designed, limited representation thereof. Much like in physicalism, there is a reality out there that we can never know in itself.

So my question is when, and why, did Bernardo make this shift in his thought process? I have not yet run across a segment in any of his writings or video appearances where his discusses this change in perspective.

Can anyone shed light on this difference?

Thanks, Forrest

I suspect that the key is in the meaning of the word "representation." My general speculative sense is that BK starts with the notion that the physical world is not an illusion but is "represented" across a boundary of dissociation (or something like this) and the concept gets elaborated (or refined) later to be something like Hoffman's "dashboard." If one is committed to knowing either/or or "which is it" this would be challenging. OTHOH, if one can accept the existence of both/and, a "representation" and an "as is" it would seem less problematic. I'm not much of a philosophy student, so these are only naive speculations. Perhaps the serious philosophers can present a deeper analysis?

[lorenzop]

Yes I think he has changed his thinking, he used to assert that reality has qualities (qualia?), now BK speaks of qualities as artifacts of a dashboard.

[AshvinP]

New member here . . .

For those of you more familiar with the development of Bernardo's concept of Analytic Idealism, I have a question:

In his earlier YouTube video appearances, he talks about our phenomenal experience in the world as representing reality as it really exists; i.e. color of red, the taste of chocolate, etc. all being how the world really is. The idea expressed would be consistent with the more traditional Idealism as expressed by Bishop Berkeley and others. This is in contrast to the materialist representation of reality as being more like an abstract mathematical equation devoid of the qualities associated with thought and perception as we experience them.

In more recent years, however, he seems to follow Donald Hoffman's idea that our conscious experience of the world is like a "dashboard of dials" a pilot sees when flying in IFR weather (actually, an "instrument panel" would be a more accurate aviation term). In other words, what we see is not reality itself, but an evolutionary designed, limited representation thereof. Much like in physicalism, there is a reality out there that we can never know in itself.

So my question is when, and why, did Bernardo make this shift in his thought process? I have not yet run across a segment in any of his writings or video appearances where his discusses this change in perspective.

Can anyone shed light on this difference?

Thanks, Forrest

It's a good example of how all abstract metaphysical systems, philosophies, psychologies, etc. become more and more materialistic over time. What is materialism? It's simply the outlook which feels and thinks the world we perceive is devoid of Ideas. We know from experience that ideas are bound up with qualitative activity of willed acts, feelings, and thoughts. They are bound up with agency, intention, and purpose, with aesthetic and moral valence. These are what materialists fail to find anywhere in Nature apart from some animals and humans.

Does analytic idealism find them anywhere else? No, only in some animals and humans. Just like materialism, it posits a discontinuity between our ideas and the forces of Nature and the Cosmos. It says the latter are unknowable with waking consciousness. But if they are unknowable, then can we even call them ideas? Can we even imagine what sort of character they might have? We can't, so that's why it ends up in the materialist camp - a dark, unknowable underlying reality devoid of qualities as we know them (this is what educated materialists also lean towards today). It's the only possible direction such world outlooks can travel when they cut off thought-out knowledge of the ideal forces within the outer appearances.

At present the physicists only talk about there being nothing outside us but vibrations, and that it is these that, for example, bring about red in us. What the physicists dream of today will come true. At present they only dream of it, but it will then be true. People will... "know" that all those things are caused by their own organism. They will consider it a superstition that there are colors outside that tint objects. The outer world will be grey in grey and human beings will be conscious of the fact that they themselves put the colors into the world... People who then see only the outer reality will say to the others who still see colors in their full freshness, “Oh, you dreamers! Do you really believe there are colors outside in nature? You do not know that you are only dreaming inside yourself that nature has these colors.” Outer nature will become more and more a matter of mathematics and geometry. ... People in the future will not believe that the capacity to see colors in the outer world has any objective significance; they will ascribe it purely to subjectivity.

- Rudolf Steiner, Necessity and Freedom (1916)

Let's remember qualities are not the colors or any other perceptions themselves, but the meaning they carry and which is discerned by our thinking.

Also we should ask, is there any real value in knowing whether Bernardo changed his mind, apart from observing the general trend common to all modern analytic thinking in the wake of Kant? Or rather is it more worthwhile to pursue the question of what is actually true?