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The Philosophy of Spirit

Your "physical means" and "physical forum" are in your mind. Get back to B&S where BS like yours flourishes under the misnomer "skepticism."

Why so aggravated? I'm just a mind in your mind.
 
The dead end is the belief that reality reduces to the material without remainder. For that very belief does not reduce to the material without remainder.
Reductive material ignores the elephant in the room -- subjectivity -- from its initial materialist assumption right on through to its reductive materialist conclusion.

I'm trying to read that paper you recently posted in this thread, but it's fairly dense so I'm going slowly. Forgive me if this is a question you've already answered.

Kastrup argues that what he calls "microexperientalism" demonstrates that there is phenomenology in ultimates. What ultimates have phenomenology though? Is it "like" something to be an atom? What about a quark? What about a gravity wave?

So long as there are non-phenomenal entities, I don't see how you can argue that consciousness is irreducible.
 
I'm trying to read that paper you recently posted in this thread, but it's fairly dense so I'm going slowly. Forgive me if this is a question you've already answered.

Kastrup argues that what he calls "microexperientalism" demonstrates that there is phenomenology in ultimates. What ultimates have phenomenology though? Is it "like" something to be an atom? What about a quark? What about a gravity wave?

So long as there are non-phenomenal entities, I don't see how you can argue that consciousness is irreducible.
You might have skipped that first section, in my opinion. I'm an idealist and didn't recognize some of those dollar-ninety-eight terms. That section, as I read it, is Kastrup's brief nod to the variety of idealisms in order to bring them all under the rubric of the idealism he means to defend in the sequel. At any rate, I believe he uses the word "posits" throughout in this section and "demonstrates" nothing.

This, by you, is correct:
So long as there are non-phenomenal entities, I don't see how you can argue that consciousness is irreducible.
But as I understand idealism there are no "non-phenomenal entities" experienced by the human mind.
 
To me, abstract all starts as a perception that what our reality is composed of may not be complete. This sense of perception, though remains at the philosophical level, can be right.

Before humans gained the capability to reach further, the world as we comprehended is a flat earth. Till we invented telescope for us to confirm with more observations we started to theorize and conclude that earth is round. What limited us to reach such a truth is human capability (or human technology in modern terms). Now what we rely heavily on in confirming a truth of this kind, instead of just a sense of philosophical perception, is our science. Our science however is not without boundaries. The reliable scope of our science is limited to phenomena which are repeatable at present time for us to observe repeatedly. We can't establish experiments in a time spot of the past, or of the future, or in a spot outside of our 3D space. That's the limit of the reliability of our science.

The question boils down to whether what our science can detect in our current time and space is all what our reality is composed of? It is the same question whether a flat already represents the place we are living. We don't invent such a sense after we know what science can do. If we already know what science can do, then fabricate something outside the reach of science and assume its existence, then it may not be a valid philosophical assumption. The point is long (very long) before the emergency of our science, human beings had already assumed that spirit is about something doesn't lie in our space and time. It's already defined long (very long) ago that the topic is outside the reach of our science. That actually stands for the validity of such a question, philosophically speaking.

It's a question asked by ancient humans that whether there are something possibly lying outside the reach of today's science!
 
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But as I understand idealism there are no "non-phenomenal entities" experienced by the human mind.

This is the part of idealism I can't grasp. I look at a rock and I experience the rock: the rock is only phenomenological insofar as it is incorporated into my conscious experience. While it is true we cannot experience a non-phenomenal entity, it does not follow that my inability to experience a non-phenomenal entity means that the rock is fundamentally phenomenal. This to me has always sounded like "I experience the sun's warmth, I cannot know what the sun's warmth is like outside of my consciousness, therefore the sun is me." Erh, what?
 
This is the part of idealism I can't grasp. I look at a rock and I experience the rock: the rock is only phenomenological insofar as it is incorporated into my conscious experience. While it is true we cannot experience a non-phenomenal entity, it does not follow that my inability to experience a non-phenomenal entity means that the rock is fundamentally phenomenal. This to me has always sounded like "I experience the sun's warmth, I cannot know what the sun's warmth is like outside of my consciousness, therefore the sun is me." Erh, what?
What is that rock outside your experience of it? We may and do infer that there is something outside our experience of the rock; we may and do carry such an inference into the discipline of science and by way of other technologically enhanced experiences and further inferences arrive at the "physical" composition of the rock, and at the end of that project what does the "physical" rock turn out to be? Mostly emptiness and otherwise a probability dependent on consciousness in the end.
 
What is that rock outside your experience of it? We may and do infer that there is something outside our experience of the rock; we may and do carry such an inference into the discipline of science and by way of other technologically enhanced experiences and further inferences arrive at the "physical" composition of the rock, and at the end of that project what does the "physical" rock turn out to be? Mostly emptiness and otherwise a probability dependent on consciousness in the end.

And yet how does any of that make the rock fundamentally a phenomenal entity? Experiencing something, even having influence over that thing, does not tear down the wall between your experience of it and its 'actuality', its separateness from your experience. Empty space and probability do not cross the gap from physicalism to idealism.
 
And yet how does any of that make the rock fundamentally a phenomenal entity? Experiencing something, even having influence over that thing, does not tear down the wall between your experience of it and its 'actuality', its separateness from your experience. Empty space and probability do not cross the gap from physicalism to idealism.
The rock is fundamentally a phenomenal entity because its phenomenal existence is the ground of its existence for a consciousness. The "wall" between conscious experience of a thing and the "actuality" of a thing is an inference by consciousness, based on an experience of consciousness but not itself an experience of consciousness; the "actual" rock is an assumption based on the phenomenal rock, i.e., based on the experience of the rock. Strictly speaking, the only actual rock (removing the scare quotes now) is the phenomenal rock; the rock as a something or other beyond or outside the experience of the rock is an assumption, an inference, by which consciousness sustains its belief in a reality outside itself.
 
The rock is fundamentally a phenomenal entity because its phenomenal existence is the ground of its existence for a consciousness. The "wall" between conscious experience of a thing and the "actuality" of a thing is an inference by consciousness, based on an experience of consciousness but not itself an experience of consciousness; the "actual" rock is an assumption based on the phenomenal rock, i.e., based on the experience of the rock.

True, but it's an assumption based on very consistent phenomenal data, even at the quantum level. If you study a rock at the quantum level, its properties are drastically different from its properties at the macro level and its phenomenality is highly unintuitive at a certain scale. Nevertheless, something is being experienced, and the apparent rules governing that experience will largely be the same for any observer.

You're right, the externality of the rock from my consciousness is an inference. It's a pretty good inference, though. As opposed to what you said next...

Strictly speaking, the only actual rock (removing the scare quotes now) is the phenomenal rock;

So your argument goes that since our only data comes through subjective experience, and we have no means of knowing a rock outside of our consciousness, then the rock must not exist beyond our consciousness.

Yet that's a logical progression with even less data than the conclusion that the rock exists outside of my mind. You keep saying "inference" like it's a bad thing, but inference alone doesn't disqualify an argument.

You are placing a condition on knowledge of the rock that is impossible to meet (knowing it outside of consciousness), and then declaring that since the condition is not met, option B must be the answer. It's an argument from ignorance combined with a false dilemna.

I really don't have anything against the concept of idealism per se. I've always thought it to be a fun idea. It wouldn't change my life if it were true, and I don't deny that it is possible; I'm just not seeing good arguments to select it over naturalism.
 
True, but it's an assumption based on very consistent phenomenal data, even at the quantum level. If you study a rock at the quantum level, its properties are drastically different from its properties at the macro level and its phenomenality is highly unintuitive at a certain scale. Nevertheless, something is being experienced, and the apparent rules governing that experience will largely be the same for any observer.

You're right, the externality of the rock from my consciousness is an inference. It's a pretty good inference, though. As opposed to what you said next...



So your argument goes that since our only data comes through subjective experience, and we have no means of knowing a rock outside of our consciousness, then the rock must not exist beyond our consciousness.

Yet that's a logical progression with even less data than the conclusion that the rock exists outside of my mind. You keep saying "inference" like it's a bad thing, but inference alone doesn't disqualify an argument.

You are placing a condition on knowledge of the rock that is impossible to meet (knowing it outside of consciousness), and then declaring that since the condition is not met, option B must be the answer. It's an argument from ignorance combined with a false dilemna.

I really don't have anything against the concept of idealism per se. I've always thought it to be a fun idea. It wouldn't change my life if it were true, and I don't deny that it is possible; I'm just not seeing good arguments to select it over naturalism.
I don't think this is my argument:
So your argument goes that since our only data comes through subjective experience, and we have no means of knowing a rock outside of our consciousness, then the rock must not exist beyond our consciousness.
I believe I granted inference as a means of believing in the rock's existence outside experience, and I'm sure I made no claim about the rock's non-existence outside consciousness.

And I don't think I implied, and certainly didn't mean to imply, that inference is "a bad thing." It's our chief means of thinking beyond experience. But the external world is "an argument," as you say. Moreover, I'm not "placing a condition on knowledge ... that is impossible to meet" -- that is the human condition in a nutshell. It's neither an "argument from ignorance" nor a "false dilemma," but simply the way things are.
 
I don't think this is my argument:

I believe I granted inference as a means of believing in the rock's existence outside experience, and I'm sure I made no claim about the rock's non-existence outside consciousness.

And I don't think I implied, and certainly didn't mean to imply, that inference is "a bad thing." It's our chief means of thinking beyond experience. But the external world is "an argument," as you say. Moreover, I'm not "placing a condition on knowledge ... that is impossible to meet" -- that is the human condition in a nutshell. It's neither an "argument from ignorance" nor a "false dilemma," but simply the way things are.

Then I've not understood your argument as to why idealism is more true (or more likely to be true) than naturalism. You said "the only actual rock (removing the scare quotes now) is the phenomenal rock". But how are you getting to that conclusion? Wouldn't it be more accurate to say "we only experience a rock through its phenomenality"? The inference of a rock existing outside my consciousness is a pretty strong one, mostly due to its consistency. So why infer anything else?

Like I said, I don't really have a serious problem with idealism. But you seem to be pointing to inference as insufficient grounds for naturalism. So then why idealism?
 
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