Breaking the "Literal Reality" addiction.

"What Carey and Gross are creating in the Leviathan arc is something that creators in the comics medium have been chipping away at for decades. It is the very beautiful and optimistic viewpoint that we are all basically splintered from the same place in our needs, wants, and desires; that everyone wants to be able to live a free life; that everyone looks to provide for their family or neighbor; that ostensibly we are creatures of habits that have an overall good within them. All this is possible if we just step back to look at our stories to find the connections."

-How The Unwritten Utilizes Semiotics to Explain A Leviathan
 
How do you know it remains consistent though?

Think about those First Person Shooters that only render what you're seeing, or perhaps things in your immediate vicinity.
That may be what's happening, but it's still consistent. Either that or my memory is not really a memory at all, but just an illusion implanted from one viewing of my yard to the next. And if that were the case, then you and I would not have any common memories and life would be significantly different.

Something is maintaining the consistency of the external world and it is not personal consciousness.

~~ Paul
 
That may be what's happening, but it's still consistent. Either that or my memory is not really a memory at all, but just an illusion implanted from one viewing of my yard to the next. And if that were the case, then you and I would not have any common memories and life would be significantly different.

Something is maintaining the consistency of the external world and it is not personal consciousness.

~~ Paul

I suppose this would require some kind of share source consciousness -> Mind making minds.
 
Yup, but why should we assume that instead of the fact that there is a physical world?

~~ Paul

Given qualia are our interface to the world, why should we assume there's a physical world outside of subject experience? I think it depends on whether one sees Mind->Matter or Matter->Mind as the bigger problem. Hoffman would note there hasn't been much actual progress in Matter->Mind theories.

Perhaps further experiments in QM like these will help figure out what the truth of the matter is? Or at least it will leave Panpsychism, Idealism, and Neutral Monism as the only options.

Not sure how one could decide between those, though any smoking gun for Psi would, IMO, suggest Panpsychism is likely false.
 
Given qualia are our interface to the world, why should we assume there's a physical world outside of subject experience?
We shouldn't. Neither should we assume there is a meta-mind. Both possibilities are on the table.

I think it depends on whether one sees Mind->Matter or Matter->Mind as the bigger problem. Hoffman would note there hasn't been much actual progress in Matter->Mind theories.
Nor has there been much in Mind->Matter.

Perhaps further experiments in QM like these will help figure out what the truth of the matter is? Or at least it will leave Panpsychism, Idealism, and Neutral Monism as the only options.
Possibly. Be careful not to take any QM interpretations too seriously.

Not sure how one could decide between those, though any smoking gun for Psi would, IMO, suggest Panpsychism is likely false.
Why?

~~ Paul
 
We shouldn't. Neither should we assume there is a meta-mind. Both possibilities are on the table.

Nor has there been much in Mind->Matter.
~~ Paul

True, no one has a definite plan. I think this might change in time depending on whether or not better evidence for the paranormal can be found.

Possibly. Be careful not to take any QM interpretations too seriously.

The results are pretty weird. They might have a materialist interpretation, but if the majority of realist models are falsified and more experiments are done that continue suggest observer-participancy I think it'll get to the point where consciousness will have to be seen as part of the firmament.


I think trying to explain any Psi effect via panpsychist paradigms is a messy process. Maybe non-compositional panpsychism would work, but it seems to me even this would require information transfer via entanglement.

I think Josephson sees a role for entanglement
so maybe I'm wrong about the explanatory challenge.
 
“The modern hero, the modern individual who dares to heed the call and seek the mansion of that presence with whom it is our whole destiny to be atoned, cannot, indeed must not, wait for his community to cast off its slough of pride, fear, rationalized avarice, and sanctified misunderstanding.

“Live,” Nietzsche says, “as though the day were here.”

It is not society that is to guide and save the creative hero, but precisely the reverse. And so every one of us shares the supreme ordeal—carries the cross of the redeemer—not in the bright moments of his tribe’s great victories, but in the silences of his personal despair.”

—Joseph Campbell
 
oh, I've contemplated that most of my life. I just don't think there's any way, no matter what tale we tell ourselves, that we can ever be certain that a world exists outside our envelope of all experience, and frankly, I don't know what the service is in believing something that can never, even in principle, be verified.

You are right that we can't be ever be 100% certain that a world exists outside our envelope of experience, but we have mountains and mountains of evidence that it does and no compelling reason to presume it doesn't. In other words, I might be a brain floating in a tank whose experiences are all illusions taking place in the mind, but it is going to take very hefty evidence for you override the evidence to the contrary that I take in every day.
 
You are right that we can't be ever be 100% certain that a world exists outside our envelope of experience, but we have mountains and mountains of evidence that it does and no compelling reason to presume it doesn't. In other words, I might be a brain floating in a tank whose experiences are all illusions taking place in the mind, but it is going to take very hefty evidence for you override the evidence to the contrary that I take in every day.

I'm not sure you're taking in any evidence that contradicts what Kai was saying.

Consider Berkeley's First Dialogue.
 
An Introduction to Radical Constructivism

The experiencing consciousness creates structure in the flow of its experience, and that structure is what conscious cognitive organism s experience as “reality.” Since that reality is created almost entirely without the experiencer’s awareness of his or her creative activity, it comes to appear as given by an independently “existing” world. Once knowing is no longer understood as the search for an iconic representation of ontological reality but, instead, as a search for fitting ways of behaving and thinking, the traditional problem of epistemology disappears. Knowledge can now be seen as something which the organism builds up in the attempt to order the as such amorphous flow of experience by establishing repeatable experiences and relatively reliable relations between them. The possibilities of constructing such an order are determined and perpetually constrained by the preceding steps in the construction. That means that the “real” world manifests itself exclusively where our constructions break down. Moreover, we can describe and explain these breakdowns only in the very concepts that we have used to build the failing structures.
 
Well, I'm a foundationalist, so I take the existence of an external world as a PBB. I used to be a coherentist, but even in coherentism I don't see how, epistemologically speaking, idealism/solipsism could be viewed as a superior worldview. As for infinitism, I think thats incoherent, so it's more like a "pick your poison" sort of trilemma ( or quadrilemma if you consider the break Plantinga made between foundationalism and reformed epistemology, though personally I don't think he has solved the Great Pumpking Problem at all, but thats for another talk).
 
Well, I'm a foundationalist, so I take the existence of an external world as a PBB. I used to be a coherentist, but even in coherentism I don't see how, epistemologically speaking, idealism/solipsism could be viewed as a superior worldview. As for infinitism, I think thats incoherent, so it's more like a "pick your poison" sort of trilemma ( or quadrilemma if you consider the break Plantinga made between foundationalism and reformed epistemology, though personally I don't think he has solved the Great Pumpking Problem at all, but thats for another talk).

What would be your objection to idealism from a coherentist view? And why shift from coherentist to foundationalist?

Also, not familiar with the Great Pumpkin Problem. Looks like I'll have to consider this break of Plantinga's as well.

Anyway, thanks for the response - opened a lot of interesting doors.
 
What would be your objection to idealism from a coherentist view?

Well, Coherentism is pretty much just epistemology, so it could be advanced that the explanatory power is much greater in an externalist worldview rather than an idealistic, though that may turn up messy ( I've never tried it at least). From a foundationalist view, it's far more easy IMHO.

And why shift from coherentist to foundationalist?

Coherentism, to me, just seems to be making a circular argument, the only difference is you have a really big circle, but it's self-referential and hence, I've never quite taken out the taste out that it's fallacious. Classical Foundationalism seems to be more akin to an axiomatic thinking, that is, with assumptions, something far more palatable than a circular argument, IMHO.

Also, not familiar with the Great Pumpkin Problem. Looks like I'll have to consider this break of Plantinga's as well.

Reformed Epistemology tries to put God as a PBB. The Great Pumpking Objection seems to attack the criteria Plantinga pulled out to include God as a PBB. It basically says that, if someone can be rational in believing God exists, ¿why not anything, like the Great Pumpking ( a mythological character Lynuss, from charlie brown, believed in blindly )? It amounts to a reductio ad absurdum.

Anyway, thanks for the response - opened a lot of interesting doors.

No problem, I love your links BTW, they are like nice little pills of knowledge :)
 
Well, Coherentism is pretty much just epistemology, so it could be advanced that the explanatory power is much greater in an externalist worldview rather than an idealistic, though that may turn up messy ( I've never tried it at least). From a foundationalist view, it's far more easy IMHO.

I can't see how the explanatory power could be greater?

Coherentism, to me, just seems to be making a circular argument, the only difference is you have a really big circle, but it's self-referential and hence, I've never quite taken out the taste out that it's fallacious. Classical Foundationalism seems to be more akin to an axiomatic thinking, that is, with assumptions, something far more palatable than a circular argument, IMHO.

That's a good way of pointing out the problem of coherentism, but what assumptions are you making with regard to your axioms? Simply an external world in the sense of avoiding solipsism? Admittedly I'll likely have to read more about foundationalism, classical or otherwise, to get a true conception of where you are coming from.

Reformed Epistemology tries to put God as a PBB. The Great Pumpking Objection seems to attack the criteria Plantinga pulled out to include God as a PBB. It basically says that, if someone can be rational in believing God exists, ¿why not anything, like the Great Pumpking ( a mythological character Lynuss, from charlie brown, believed in blindly )? It amounts to a reductio ad absurdum.

Hmmm, we may have to go over Feser's commentary on proofs of God sooner rather than later! But I need to check out more on reformed epistemology.

No problem, I love your links BTW, they are like nice little pills of knowledge.

Thanks! I find hard agnosticism leads one to interesting places. :-)
 
I can't see how the explanatory power could be greater?

For example, a B-theory, or the PSR could potentially explain the existence of the Universe, including your mind, while a purely Idealistic model may have some problems explaining what you see, and why.

That's a good way of pointing out the problem of coherentism, but what assumptions are you making with regard to your axioms? Simply an external world in the sense of avoiding solipsism? Admittedly I'll likely have to read more about foundationalism, classical or otherwise, to get a true conception of where you are coming from.

The only assumptions I'm making in regard to my axioms are that they are by default true unless they are proven false, my personal axioms are usually the ones most people have: existence of other minds, existence of the external world, the truth of logical and mathematical axioms, and the such. Think of knowledge like a tree, the base are the axioms. Idealism can be constructed based in both coherentism or foundationalism, of course, since those are epistemologically neutral model ( and, if we ignore infinitism, are by force the three possible ways one may go ), however whatever epistemological ground you take, an Idealist cannot attack an externalist position unless they find a common ground from where the Idealist can point into a contradiction in the externalist worldview (since logical axioms are usually regarded as foundational or vital in both the coherentism and Foundationalism ). For example, the externalist may hold a scientific way of figuring out the truth, and the Idealist also. From there, the Idealist may point a scientific study that contradicts the externalist view, thus, showing that an sub-epistemological part on the externalist view leads to a contradiction of the other axiomatic belief in the external world.

Hmmm, we may have to go over Feser's commentary on proofs of God sooner rather than later! But I need to check out more on reformed epistemology.

Feser is more (IMHO) well versed in Thomistic philosophy rather than in reformed epistemology, but we can start there if you wish. I've personally studied in depth many arguments from God, with the help of many theists and atheist in a very popular forum that is the ownership of a philosopher and apologist of christianity. We can pick anyone you wish, and I'll explain you my insights into them. My personal favorites, in advance, are the Kalam argument, the Leibnizian argument, the Modal Ontological Argument, and a few forms of Trascendental Arguments, although I've also always been quite interested in the Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism, and the such.


Thanks! I find hard agnosticism leads one to interesting places. :)

Indeed :)
 
On the Proofs of God thing, just to be clear I've yet to believe such proofs would be convincing but I think it'll make an interesting exercise to go through them.

I'm thinking a Mod+ thread, where each proof gets 3-5 days before posting the next one? I figure there should be some actual order to going through the arguments and counterarguments, without thread drift away from the actual proofs.

Also, do you have a link to the site you mention? Thanks!
 
On the Proofs of God thing, just to be clear I've yet to believe such proofs would be convincing but I think it'll make an interesting exercise to go through them.

I can help you going through them based on my knowledge :).

I'm thinking a Mod+ thread, where each proof gets 3-5 days before posting the next one? I figure there should be some actual order to going through the arguments and counterarguments, without thread drift away from the actual proofs.

That would be interesting, I think the starting point should be the so-called cosmological ones.

Also, do you have a link to the site you mention? Thanks!

http://www.reasonablefaith.org/forums/choose-your-own-topic/ The site is endorsed by William Lane Craig, a famous christian apologist. In my opinion, it's one of the best forums to talk about God in general. The atheists and theists there are usually polite, and they know their stuff. I've rarely encountered basic "apologetics 101" errors. It would be interesting to have a sort of cross-over between this place and that one, because people there rarely talk about parapsychology ( specially when discussing philosophy of the mind ). It's usually taken to be "false" as the working assumption, usually by both parties.
 
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