How Idealism Simplifies Metaphysics

400 views
Skip to first unread message

Scott Roberts

unread,
Dec 27, 2020, 8:06:05 PM12/27/20
to Metaphysical Speculations

There is conscious activity (thinking, feeling, sensing, hallucinating, dreaming, and so on). Idealism is the claim that there is only conscious activity. Given idealism, one then has to provide a scenario or two that would explain why it seems to us that there is non-conscious activity, like water flowing down a river. One scenario is to say that we could all be sharing a dream. Another is to say we are avatars in a virtual-reality-like simulation, albeit one produced by superior spirit beings, not running on a computer. It should be noted that these scenarios are not additional assumptions, rather just ways to imagine how it could be that water flowing down a river could be understood as being within consciousness. On the other hand, those who assume there is something other than conscious activity are faced with either the intractable problem of how conscious and non-conscious activity interact (dualism) or the hard problem of consciousness (materialists). So idealism simplifies by not having an intractable problem.

But that's just the start. Other ontologies have a language/reality problem: there is reality, and then there is language about reality, with the issue of how well language can describe reality, indeed, whether it can at all. But with idealism, language is simply more conscious activity. With other ontologies one has to worry about the fact that the map is not the territory. But with idealism, a territory is a highly detailed thought construct, while a map of it is simply the same construct without all the details. Of course, a map may leave out some vital features, and so be a faulty map, but to say "the map is not the territory" is no more informative than saying that a design of a house is not a house.

(That there is no language/reality distinction in idealism also makes idealism immune from post-modern critique. See my short essay "Idealism as a Response to "Postmodernism"" for more on this.)

Then there is the reality/appearance distinction. With idealism, all appearances are real. End of story. Well, one might point out that when we look at water flowing down a river, that that appears to us as non-conscious activity. In response, I would say that it is not a false appearance, rather, it is a false belief about what appears. We are not cognizant that it is a dream river (according to one scenario) or that it is a representation of the thought of highly advanced spiritual beings (according to another). A simple way to grasp this is to imagine someone who has never seen or heard of writing of any sort, then presented with a scrap of paper with some writing on it. That person will not be cognizant that the words on the paper mean something -- it will just look like random marks.

Next up, the ontology/epistemology distinction. With idealism, to modify Berkeley, to be is to be known, and so a theory of knowledge is at the same time a theory of being. So no distinction.

Similarly, there is no ontology/logic distinction. Taking logic in a more general sense, as the study of patterns of thinking, and since thinking is conscious activity, the study of logic is again the study of being.

Although this is controversial among idealists, I would say that with idealism there is no ground/grounded distinction. There is conscious activity, and there are particular conscious acts. But that just means that the term "conscious activity" is the generic term for all those acts, whether of God or human. Of course there are conscious acts which depend on prior conscious acts, and so one might pursue this to claim that there is (or was) a Primal Conscious Act which is the ground for all other conscious acts. Or not, that is, there may be an eternal generation of spontaneous conscious acts, some of which coalesce as systems of causation, while others don't.

Lastly, though this one requires a logical shift, many of the traditional bugaboos of metaphysics such as the problems of one/many, permanence/change, continuity/discreteness, eternity/time, and being/becoming, can be understood as features of every conscious act. This means they can be seen to no longer be problems arising from what we experience to seeing both poles of these polarities as necessary for any experience. The ground is not one pole or the other, but both in a nondual relation. See my Tetralemmic Polarity essay for details. The shift is that, while what (in other ontologies) is seen as a problem of what is experienced (is it one or many, etc.), can now be seen as simply the essence of experiencing.

Of course, none of this "proves" idealism. It's just nice to sit back and watch most of the problems that other ontologies have to deal with evaporate.

Ashvin Pandurangi

unread,
Dec 27, 2020, 9:55:32 PM12/27/20
to Metaphysical Speculations
Very nice, Scott! I think you just settled about 5-10 debates happening on different threads with this one post. This should remind all idealists to take idealism seriously and on a consistent basis. I often find myself getting confused about concepts being proposed or asked about because I simply forget to frame the question or issue from a true idealist perspective.

Santeri Satama

unread,
Dec 27, 2020, 10:10:45 PM12/27/20
to Metaphysical Speculations
I agree that post-modernism is better understood as end-state modernism. Reaching for something after modernism is nowadays often called metamodernism.

I also like what you say about map and territory. In response, I'd like to stress the importance of the relation indefinite-definite. "Higher detail" territory implies definite character approached through lower resolution maps (as in holography), but becoming of new territories involves moving from definite into the indefinite. Mathematics at the idealist level of ontology emerges as indefinite intuitions, which can be attempted to give definite linguistic constructions - maps. My point: idealist territory can be also highly indefinite (cf. potential/dynamis) as well as highly detailed.

Rober...@msn.com

unread,
Dec 27, 2020, 10:29:56 PM12/27/20
to Metaphysical Speculations
Good food for thought, Scott.  Let me ask a supplemental question about the river.  It is deep.  It presumably contains unseen, unsuspected artefacts underneath the surface.  Or does it?  Are these unseen objects amorphous thoughts, or are they clearly defined items of thought?  Do "alters" have to sense them before they become specific, or does the Mind-at-large perceive them as such?  Thanks.

On Sunday, December 27, 2020 at 8:06:05 PM UTC-5 Scott Roberts wrote:

Santeri Satama

unread,
Dec 27, 2020, 11:10:06 PM12/27/20
to Metaphysical Speculations
maanantai 28. joulukuuta 2020 klo 5.29.56 UTC+2 Rober...@msn.com kirjoitti:
Good food for thought, Scott.  Let me ask a supplemental question about the river.  It is deep.  It presumably contains unseen, unsuspected artefacts underneath the surface.  Or does it?  Are these unseen objects amorphous thoughts, or are they clearly defined items of thought?  Do "alters" have to sense them before they become specific, or does the Mind-at-large perceive them as such?  Thanks.


Long time ago I wrote a poem about weird deep-sea creatures that create their own light...  the poem started with rain of horns of stars, as the tiny listens to space.

Santeri Satama

unread,
Dec 27, 2020, 11:25:57 PM12/27/20
to Metaphysical Speculations
Pikkuinen kuuntelee avaruutta
missä satelliitti tähtiä metsästää.
Nyt napsuu pajunlehtiin
irronneita sakaroita,

kiinnittää säteen kaukainen torni
kuin köyden läpi syvän pimeän
missä syvän meren
oudot oliot
loihtivat omaa valoa.

***

The little is listening to space
where the satellite hunts the stars.
Now drips on willow leaves
detached horns,

ray fixed by distant tower
like rope through the deep dark
where weird beings
of the deep sea
conjure their own light.




Dana Lomas

unread,
Dec 28, 2020, 8:33:30 AM12/28/20
to Metaphysical Speculations
>> Are these unseen objects amorphous thoughts, or are they clearly defined items of thought? <<

Here's an exchange from a while ago that may clarify ...

I wrote: I see nothing wrong with inference either, just that it's not enough. What you call Divine Thinking can certainly be inferred, but ultimately it is not translatable into the inherent limitations of our language which is a function of the inherent limitations of our individuated and conditioned thinking. We could say that Divine Thinking translates itself into Divine Language, which would be the Cosmos itself. What we are left with is translating that Divine Language into these words, myths, metaphors, metaphysics, poetry, etc, which however close it may get, can never fully speak it. As such, the Tao is always speaking ~ really, we need only listen. But being storytelling creatures, I suppose we must do what we're compelled to do. 


Scott replied:  I think you are mixing up two issues. One is whether the absolute can be named, and the other what the absolute is like. All I am saying is that the absolute can be named as the triunity of thinking, and that in naming it as such we have the central piece for a complete metaphysics. Further, it is a metaphysics that is aligned with the mystical tradition, yet is so without mystification. Mystification is saying things like "the Tao that can be named is not the Eternal Tao". 

Now I agree with you that the Tao's thoughts are such that we can only glean through a glass darkly, and need poetry and such to dimly translate. Here is a mystic's description of Divine Thinking (Franklin Merrell-Wolff, Experience and Philosophy, p. 308):      

" At the deepest level of discernible thought there is a thinking that flows of itself. In its purity it employs none of the concepts that could be captured in definable words. It is fluidic rather than granular. It never isolates a definitive divided part, but everlastingly interblends them all. Every thought includes the whole of Eternity, and yet there are distinguishable thoughts. The unbroken Eternal flows before the mind, yet is endlessly colored anew with unlimited possibility. There is no labor in this thought. It simply is. It is unrelated to all desiring, all images, and all symbols."
                        
The closest I can come to conveying what Franklin Merrell-Wolff is getting at is through the idea of pure inspiration, or primal ideation, prior to its objectification into any recognizable representational form, such as the inspiration for a poem before it is objectified into word-form, at once rendered communicable and perceivable within the context of a subject><object dynamic ~ of course, still leaving the question of how a sole nondual Mind becomes the apparency of innumerable subjectified minds.

Brad Walker

unread,
Dec 28, 2020, 9:56:27 AM12/28/20
to Metaphysical Speculations
Excellent post, Scott. We're on the same page. Heuristically practicing ontology is incohering alternatives to identity cosmopsychism. Perhaps some day a superintelligent AI can confirm or deny coherent alternatives, supposing it decides consensus there is preferable socially to perpetual mysterianism.

jim.c...@gmail.com

unread,
Dec 28, 2020, 10:07:36 AM12/28/20
to Metaphysical Speculations
one then has to provide a scenario or two that would explain why it seems to us that there is non-conscious activity, like water flowing down a river

Don't you jump over that problem a little too quickly? If your consciousness is telling you that there are things that seem to be unconscious, then your consciousness is either right or wrong. If it is right, then idealism is wrong. If it is wrong, then your consciousness is wrong so how could you trust it to be right about what it seems itself to be.
On Sunday, December 27, 2020 at 8:06:05 PM UTC-5 Scott Roberts wrote:

Brad Walker

unread,
Dec 28, 2020, 4:48:36 PM12/28/20
to Metaphysical Speculations
Jim, what? Idealism is consciousness being solely fundamental, not everything, including all appearances, being conscious.

Simon Adams

unread,
Dec 28, 2020, 9:03:29 PM12/28/20
to Metaphysical Speculations
Excellent and clear articles Scott. It’s really quite astounding the problems modern philosophy has created for itself. 

Scott Roberts

unread,
Dec 28, 2020, 9:06:40 PM12/28/20
to Metaphysical Speculations
On Sunday, December 27, 2020 at 4:55:32 PM UTC-10 ashvi...@gmail.com wrote:
Very nice, Scott! I think you just settled about 5-10 debates happening on different threads with this one post.

I admit that was not a small part of my motivation.
 
This should remind all idealists to take idealism seriously and on a consistent basis. I often find myself getting confused about concepts being proposed or asked about because I simply forget to frame the question or issue from a true idealist perspective.

Yes, it takes an effort to think as an idealist ought. 

Scott Roberts

unread,
Dec 28, 2020, 9:06:40 PM12/28/20
to Metaphysical Speculations
On Monday, December 28, 2020 at 4:56:27 AM UTC-10 Brad Walker wrote:
Excellent post, Scott. We're on the same page. Heuristically practicing ontology is incohering alternatives to identity cosmopsychism. Perhaps some day a superintelligent AI can confirm or deny coherent alternatives, supposing it decides consensus there is preferable socially to perpetual mysterianism.

Could you unpack what you mean by "incohering alternatives to identity cosmopyschism"? 

Scott Roberts

unread,
Dec 28, 2020, 9:06:40 PM12/28/20
to Metaphysical Speculations
On Monday, December 28, 2020 at 5:07:36 AM UTC-10 jim.c...@gmail.com wrote:
one then has to provide a scenario or two that would explain why it seems to us that there is non-conscious activity, like water flowing down a river

Don't you jump over that problem a little too quickly?

Of course I did. If you want more detailed scenarios see, e.g., BK's Idea of the World, or get acquainted with esoteric writers like Dion Fortune or Rudolf Steiner. The point is that the idealist has scenarios, while the materialist is stuck at saying "somehow non-conscious activity produces conscious activity" and the dualist with "somehow conscious and non-conscious activity interact".
 
If your consciousness is telling you that there are things that seem to be unconscious, then your consciousness is either right or wrong. If it is right, then idealism is wrong. If it is wrong, then your consciousness is wrong so how could you trust it to be right about what it seems itself to be.

 Is a cat's consciousness "wrong" if it can't take in what I am saying when I talk to it? In that sense, yes, our consciousness is "wrong" in how it perceives physical reality. But that does not mean it is wrong in what it thinks about this aspect of our consciousness. What if one has an explanation for why one's consciousness is not experiencing the thought behind the appearance? See my Idealism vs. Common Sense essay for such an explanation.

Scott Roberts

unread,
Dec 28, 2020, 9:06:40 PM12/28/20
to Metaphysical Speculations
Robert and Dana,

Good question and good point, but these are scenario details. Which, of course, is what we in this forum are mostly concerned with, but I'd rather not get into in this thread.


Scott Roberts

unread,
Dec 28, 2020, 9:06:40 PM12/28/20
to Metaphysical Speculations
On Sunday, December 27, 2020 at 5:10:45 PM UTC-10 Santeri Satama wrote:

I also like what you say about map and territory. In response, I'd like to stress the importance of the relation indefinite-definite. "Higher detail" territory implies definite character approached through lower resolution maps (as in holography), but becoming of new territories involves moving from definite into the indefinite.

Yes, new territory is indefinite while it is being created. Which is to say that definition is creation.
 
Mathematics at the idealist level of ontology emerges as indefinite intuitions, which can be attempted to give definite linguistic constructions - maps.

Alternatively, what we regard as indefinite mathematics is simply that which we haven't yet understood. But that might be opening up the old invented versus discovered argument.  
 
My point: idealist territory can be also highly indefinite (cf. potential/dynamis) as well as highly detailed. 

Or as Pirsig put it, there is dynamic quality, leaving static quality in its wake.
 

Santeri Satama

unread,
Dec 29, 2020, 1:58:55 AM12/29/20
to Metaphysical Speculations
Alternatively, what we regard as indefinite mathematics is simply that which we haven't yet understood. But that might be opening up the old invented versus discovered argument.  


Invention and discovery are not exclusive, they are both aspects of the (current duration of) dynamic holography self-comprehension of mathematical cognition. Coming from opposite directions, both Brouwer and Badiou - the philosophers of math worth taking seriously on this issue - have very similar phenomenology of evolution of mathematical cognition:
https://cosmosandhistory.org/index.php/journal/article/viewFile/30/59

jim.c...@gmail.com

unread,
Dec 29, 2020, 9:10:26 AM12/29/20
to Metaphysical Speculations
the idealist has scenarios

I'm not sure why you think a materialist wouldn't have scenarios too. We can make analogies, as does BK, about television sets containing representations of external reality but also being totally material. If the world is arranged somewhat fractally in some fashion, we would expect small parts of it (minds) to organize similarly to larger parts. At many levels, the brain and sensory organs operate as wave forms that form analogues to the wave forms of external reality.

But the real issue is that scenarios by themselves, whether materialistic or idealistic, don't answer the real issue. They just provide a feeling there might be some way of bridging the gaps for the hard problems of materialism and idealism without providing a way to cross.

Ben Iscatus

unread,
Dec 29, 2020, 10:20:17 AM12/29/20
to Metaphysical Speculations
Scott, why not make an essay of this?

Scott Roberts

unread,
Dec 29, 2020, 4:48:51 PM12/29/20
to Metaphysical Speculations
On Monday, December 28, 2020 at 8:58:55 PM UTC-10 Santeri Satama wrote:

Invention and discovery are not exclusive, they are both aspects of the (current duration of) dynamic holography self-comprehension of mathematical cognition. Coming from opposite directions, both Brouwer and Badiou - the philosophers of math worth taking seriously on this issue - have very similar phenomenology of evolution of mathematical cognition:
https://cosmosandhistory.org/index.php/journal/article/viewFile/30/59 

 I may respond (in a new thread) if I get the energy to wade through the  paper you linked to.

Scott Roberts

unread,
Dec 29, 2020, 4:51:23 PM12/29/20
to Metaphysical Speculations
On Tuesday, December 29, 2020 at 5:20:17 AM UTC-10 isc...@gmail.com wrote:
Scott, why not make an essay of this?

I thought of making it into an Essay Submission, but I think to do so would require incorporating the stuff I just linked to, which in the case of the Tetralemmic Polarity essay would not be easy. 

Scott Roberts

unread,
Dec 29, 2020, 4:58:24 PM12/29/20
to Metaphysical Speculations
On Tuesday, December 29, 2020 at 4:10:26 AM UTC-10 jim.c...@gmail.com wrote:

I'm not sure why you think a materialist wouldn't have scenarios too. We can make analogies, as does BK, about television sets containing representations of external reality but also being totally material.

I haven't seeing anything close to a scenario for how neural activity produces qualia.
 
If the world is arranged somewhat fractally in some fashion, we would expect small parts of it (minds) to organize similarly to larger parts.

This sounds like panpsychism, which as I see it is a form of dualism.
 
At many levels, the brain and sensory organs operate as wave forms that form analogues to the wave forms of external reality.

Umm. Of course the brain and the outside world have commonalities. The problem is how to get from wave forms to qualia.
 

But the real issue is that scenarios by themselves, whether materialistic or idealistic, don't answer the real issue. They just provide a feeling there might be some way of bridging the gaps for the hard problems of materialism and idealism without providing a way to cross.

Idealists have ways to cross, though they are not philosophical (or easy). They are called spiritual practices. 

jim.c...@gmail.com

unread,
Dec 29, 2020, 8:44:14 PM12/29/20
to Metaphysical Speculations
I haven't anything close to a scenario how mind creates "matter". Just because you call it "qualia" doesn't mean it is something mystical and magical. Qualia may be wave forms. Anyway, I gave you scenarios which is nothing different from what you have done for the opposite view.

Yes, it is difficult to imagine how material things like rocks can produce something that can have experience. But it is also difficult to imagine that the things we see and touch, like rocks, actually are mental when there is no actual evidence for it. We don't know directly anything mental beyond our own experience. 

The hard problem works both ways. Why and how does mind take on an extrinsic form as what appears to be matter? I've only seen farfetched scenarios.



Ashvin Pandurangi

unread,
Dec 29, 2020, 8:59:32 PM12/29/20
to Metaphysical Speculations
"I haven't anything close to a scenario how mind creates "matter" ...
But it is also difficult to imagine that the things we see and touch, like rocks, actually are mental when there is no actual evidence for it."   

Have you ever put on a virtual reality headset? We may not know how minds create 'concrete' appearances, but difficult to imagine? Hardly.

jim.c...@gmail.com

unread,
Dec 30, 2020, 10:50:16 AM12/30/20
to Metaphysical Speculations
A VR headset would be analogous to the televisions I mentioned earlier. It is a completely material manufacturing of reality. 

jim.c...@gmail.com

unread,
Dec 30, 2020, 10:51:43 AM12/30/20
to Metaphysical Speculations
What's more it is a completely material manufacturing of reality that can fool you into thinking it is something other than what it is.

Eugene I

unread,
Dec 30, 2020, 3:24:12 PM12/30/20
to Metaphysical Speculations
<<  Yes, it is difficult to imagine how material things like rocks can produce something that can have experience. But it is also difficult to imagine that the things we see and touch, like rocks, actually are mental when there is no actual evidence for it. We don't know directly anything mental beyond our own experience.   >>

Have you ever touched something that feels and looks "material", like rocks, in your dream? When you wake up, it is also difficult to imagine that the things you saw and touched in your dream, like rocks, actually were material. But what makes you think that the things you see and touch when you are awake are different from the things you see and tough when you dream?

<< We don't know directly anything mental beyond our own experience.  >>

We don't know anything, mental or material, beyond our own experience. But we only know mental within our own experience. So why do me have to "invent" the existence of some other "stuff" of a completely different nature ("matter") other than we already know from our own experience? But we still tried that and found that assumption of the existence of "matter" still fails to explain "how material things like rocks can produce something that can have experience", so such assumption does not help. We do have "physics" as a set of mathematical equations that describe the patterns of our experience, but those do not require any assumptions on the nature of reality, those are only math formulas, so the assumption of the existence of "matter" does not help physics either. So, what's the point of keeping such useless assumption? 

On Tuesday, December 29, 2020 at 8:44:14 PM UTC-5 jim.c...@gmail.com wrote:

jim.c...@gmail.com

unread,
Dec 30, 2020, 3:52:06 PM12/30/20
to Metaphysical Speculations
the things you saw and touched in your dream, like rocks, actually were material. But what makes you think that the things you see and touch when you are awake are different from the things you see and tough when you dream?

This is really good argument for the VR headset analogy. Your brain is a VR head set that can produce the same experience in awake or asleep mode. 

So why do me have to "invent" the existence of some other "stuff" of a completely different nature ("matter")

Unless you are a solipsist, there is an external world so there is the question whether the external world is mental or the internal world is material. Either way we do not need to invent a second "stuff". As we can see from the VR headset analogy, something material can create an apparent reality so that most likely is what the material brain is doing and we are mistaking its generated reality as mental.

Scott Roberts

unread,
Dec 30, 2020, 3:53:45 PM12/30/20
to Metaphysical Speculations
On Tuesday, December 29, 2020 at 3:44:14 PM UTC-10 jim.c...@gmail.com wrote:

Why and how does mind take on an extrinsic form as what appears to be matter? I've only seen farfetched scenarios.

If you are referring to my Idealism vs.Common Sense essay,  Barfield's thesis will appear farfetched to those with modernist (especially materialist) blinders on. Without them, though, I would say it is a well-reasoned conclusion based on empirical data. 

Ashvin Pandurangi

unread,
Dec 30, 2020, 4:22:21 PM12/30/20
to Metaphysical Speculations
"This is really good argument for the VR headset analogy. Your brain is a VR head set that can produce the same experience in awake or asleep mode."  

So that means your 'brain' can produce appearances which you can see, touch, hear, feel and smell that do not correspond to any external 'object'.  Right? So, again, it is not hard for you to imagine, because you just did.

First Cause

unread,
Dec 30, 2020, 4:24:55 PM12/30/20
to Metaphysical Speculations
"Unless you are a solipsist, there is an external world so there is the question whether the external world is mental or the internal world is material. Either way we do not need to invent a second "stuff". As we can see from the VR headset analogy, something material can create an apparent reality so that most likely is what the material brain is doing and we are mistaking its generated reality as mental."

I think your assessment is right on target Jim and I commend you for it, but you are not going to get any kind of concession from this group of religious fundamentalists.  As far as I'm concerned, your point is indeed a very compelling argument, one that should not be easily dismissed.

Rock on.......
 

Brad Walker

unread,
Dec 30, 2020, 4:49:54 PM12/30/20
to Metaphysical Speculations
Jim, where's this homunculus viewing the material generated reality?

Brad Walker

unread,
Dec 30, 2020, 5:00:08 PM12/30/20
to Metaphysical Speculations
Fundamental, are you accusing me of attending church? How dare you!

Brad Walker

unread,
Dec 30, 2020, 5:06:21 PM12/30/20
to Metaphysical Speculations
A theistic ontology isn't a religion, it's a metaphysical position. A religion has the baggage of other objectionable things like cult leader to emulate, ethics, sexual practices, diet, alternative history, etc.

jim.c...@gmail.com

unread,
Dec 30, 2020, 5:49:55 PM12/30/20
to Metaphysical Speculations
It's obvious the mind/brain is wrong a lot. It gets fooled by optical illusions. Hoffman's earlier book Visual Intelligence dealt a lot with them. Even hypnotists doing parlor tricks can induce people to see or feel things that are not real. Memories are quite unreliable and malleable.

I mostly agree with the weaker version of Hoffman's interface theory. I disagree that the fact the brain is wrong about a lot implies anything more than it is a product of evolution and subject to various shortcuts and limitations that across during its evolutionary development. BK put up a video recently showing something similar using the analogy of an airplane flying and the pilot relying on instrumentation.

All of this is expected under a materialistic view of mind. Representations are imperfect. Limitations in energy economy of brain necessarily require that reality be simplified to the most salient  features.



Message has been deleted

Eugene I

unread,
Dec 30, 2020, 8:45:00 PM12/30/20
to Metaphysical Speculations
<< All of this is expected under a materialistic view of mind.  >>

That's ok. So it is expected under idealistic view of mind where the perceived reality is a simulation-like reality produced by more computationally powerful mind(s) just like Hoffman ran his evolutionary simulations using simulation algorithms. Evolutional view is not unique to materialism. Even more in general, no scientific knowledge acquired so far is unique to materialism, or requires materialism as a necessary platform assumption, and can be equally well incorporated into the idealistic worldview. And that is because "good" science is and should be agnostic to the ontology.   

Santeri Satama

unread,
Dec 31, 2020, 12:53:49 AM12/31/20
to Metaphysical Speculations
This is really good argument for the VR headset analogy. Your brain is a VR head set that can produce the same experience in awake or asleep mode. 

Not exactly same. When you read Dostoyevski as a teen is different experience from reading it again as old.

The TV analogy that Bohm used is telling. Who watches TV anymore? With Internet we moved from very passive tech metaphor to much more interactive. My only experience of a VR headset so far is playing multiplayer games with my kids, games which involved not only sitting (bit like brain inna jar), but whole body movement.

If we want to draw Matrix analogy here, the experience of VR headset is actually experiencing a matrix inna matrix, simultaneously. Direct experience of the embedding relation. 

Santeri Satama

unread,
Dec 31, 2020, 12:57:00 AM12/31/20
to Metaphysical Speculations
Good science is and should be agnostic, period. But as good comes with a choice of ethical axioms, good science is not indifferent whether you do it in materialistic or idealist frame.

Ashvin Pandurangi

unread,
Jan 2, 2021, 11:39:28 AM1/2/21
to Metaphysical Speculations
"Hoffman's earlier book Visual Intelligence dealt a lot with them." 

I would point out that Hoffman's conclusion in that book was that the human mind creates (I would say co-creates) all phenomenal appearances in the "external" world, not just the "optical illusions". By the time he wrote that book, he was well into working out his perception interface theory. 

"I mostly agree with the weaker version of Hoffman's interface theory" 

There really is no "weaker" version. Based on his game theoretical modeling, evolutionary science necessitates that any creature which attempts to represent any true properties of structures in the world will be out-competed by creatures of equal complexity and therefore will go extinct. There is no half-truth compromise to be stricken in nature. 
On Wednesday, December 30, 2020 at 5:49:55 PM UTC-5 jim.c...@gmail.com wrote:

jim.c...@gmail.com

unread,
Jan 2, 2021, 1:38:31 PM1/2/21
to Metaphysical Speculations
  This is a simple misunderstanding. MUI theory is not idealism. It does not claim that all that exists are conscious perceptions. It claims that our conscious perceptions need not resemble the objective world, whatever nature the objective world might happen to take. MUI theory is compatible with a physicalist ontology, but MUI theory is not itself committed to any particular ontology.  

jim.c...@gmail.com

unread,
Jan 2, 2021, 1:54:14 PM1/2/21
to Metaphysical Speculations
BTW, although I agree to a large extent with MUI, I think Hoffman's modeling is wrong on some major points:

1- It fails to consider that perceptions are not wholly developed from evolutionary processes. They are also learned. In fact, the evolutionary development of learning is a key factor in the development of consciousness itself.

2- Perceptions can be correct in regard to relationships, differences, similarities, and temporal ordering 

3- Certain types of perceptions, such as mathematical and logical, could also be more veridical and representative of the world. Hoffman in effect acknowledges this and, if it were not true, then his own modeling would be suspect.

On Saturday, January 2, 2021 at 11:39:28 AM UTC-5 ashvi...@gmail.com wrote:

Ashvin Pandurangi

unread,
Jan 2, 2021, 3:29:32 PM1/2/21
to Metaphysical Speculations
MUI theory is not compatible with 'physicalist' or 'materialist' ontology since it concludes that 'space-time' is a perceptual data construct of mind. Therefore we cannot have mind-independent 'physical' structures with quantitative properties under MUI. That leaves dualism/pluralism and monism, and Hoffman's proposed conscious agent theory of fundamental reality is obviously a formulation of idealism (what he calls "conscious realism"). There are also plenty of independent (of MUI) philosophical and scientific reasons to discount or altogether rule out dualism/pluralism. 

re: your objections to Hoffman's modeling

1 - How is 'learning' not a subset of evolutionary process if it developed from evolutionary process? And how does 'learned' perception lead to more accurate perception?

2 - How? You are stating a conclusion which contradicts Hoffman's MUI theory but not elaborating the reasons.

3 - True, Hoffman acknowledges that basic mathematical/logical reasoning could correspond to veridical structures of the world. Those are not "types of perception", though, and do not help redeem any physicalist ontology. 

jim.c...@gmail.com

unread,
Jan 2, 2021, 4:45:57 PM1/2/21
to Metaphysical Speculations

1- Capacity for learning is a subset of evolutionary process but once it exists things can be learned without the involvement of evolutionary processes directly. One person in one generation can learn to catch and eat a snake rather than simply react to it. What's more it is an entire layer not modeled by Hoffman in his perception-action model. And yes, it will lead to correction of perceptions. My cat mistook a helicopter for a potential predator. I would guess in one or two more encounters the helicopter will just be a loud but harmless intrusion on the sounds of the afternoon and not something to run from. Obviously we know all sorts of ways to correct our perceptions through science. 

2- See Edelman or read my blog post linked above  that summarizes his arguments. http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.651.322&rep=rep1&type=pdf

3- See this quote

We use evolutionary games to show that natural selection does not favor veridical perceptions. This does not entail that all cognitive faculties are not reliable. Each faculty must be examined on its own to determine how it might be shaped by natural selection.

Perhaps, for instance, selection pressures favor accurate math; one who accurately predicts that the payoff for eating an apple today when hungry, combined with the payoff for eating an apple yesterday when equally hungry, is roughly twice the payoff obtained on either day, might have a selective advantage over his math challenged neighbor. Perhaps selection favors accurate logic; one who combines estimates of payoff in accord with probabilistic logic might avoid having nature and competitors make fitness Dutch books against him.Footnote6 This is not to predict that natural selection should make us all math whizzes for whom statistical inference is quick and intuitive. To the contrary, there is ample evidence that we have systematic weaknesses and rely on fallible heuristics and biases (Kahneman 2011). Whereas in perception the selection pressures are almost uniformly away from veridicality, perhaps in math and logic the pressures are not so univocal, and partial accuracy is allowed. 


https://link.springer.com/article/10.3758/s13423-015-0890-8#Sec14


But this isn't a question of redeeming anything. MUI is ontologically agnostic per Hoffman himself.

Ashvin Pandurangi

unread,
Jan 2, 2021, 5:32:40 PM1/2/21
to Metaphysical Speculations
1 - The 'learning' you are referring to is a process of reinforcing or further exploring adaptive perceptions and behaviors, which does not indicate a reversal from fitness-oriented perception to truth-oriented perception, and is exactly what we would predict from Hoffman's interface perception model. Your statement that we are "correcting" our perceptions through repeated observation, like your cat, is circular reasoning. Again, going from mere reaction to snakes to catching and eating snakes is exactly what we would expect from creatures optimizing fitness rather than veridical perception. 

2 - "Edelman in a partial critique of Hoffman argues that “there are interesting ways in which perception can be truthful, with regard not to ‘objects’ but to relations, and that evolutionary pressure is expected to favor rather than rule out such veridicality.” Edelman cites three examples. Categorical consistency allows determination of the identity of stimuli which can vary, such as identifying the same person with different dress or haircut. Second order isomorphism involves ranking similarities, such as seeing different shades of green and yellow in ripe and unripe bananas.  Causality involves associating events in a time order, such as understanding thunder to be caused by lightning."

Idealist philosophers like Kant figured the basics of the above out centuries ago. I am failing to see how it supports physicalist ontology any more now than it did back then (which was not at all). All of this is explained very well by Hoffman's perception interface model. 

3 - Yes, like I said, he is referring to "cognitive functions" which are not perceptual. I happen to believe on mythological, philosophical and theological grounds that abstract reasoning can draw us nearer to fundamental reality, but those grounds also necessitate that all "physical" structures of the world are interpreted symbolically rather than literally, as Hoffman's scientific theory concludes as well. 

MUI is ontologically agnostic as to various forms of dualism and idealism, but not as to physicalism. Hoffman repeatedly states in just about every interview he gives that physicalism cannot be true under his theory and that we need to abandon all physicalist assumptions if we are to make any scientific progress from here on out. 

jim.c...@gmail.com

unread,
Jan 3, 2021, 7:24:59 AM1/3/21
to Metaphysical Speculations
Hoffman himself wrote: " MUI theory is compatible with a physicalist ontology ." 

Ashvin Pandurangi

unread,
Jan 3, 2021, 10:49:38 AM1/3/21
to Metaphysical Speculations
Where does he write that? This would indicate the opposite:

"According to MUI theory there are no public objects. If I hand you a glass of water, it is natural, but false, to assume that the glass I once held is the same as, i.e., numerically identical with, the glass you now hold. Instead, according to MUI theory, the glass I held was, when I observed it, an icon of my perceptual experience within my MUI, and the glass you now hold, when you observe it, is an icon of your MUI, and they are numerically distinct. There are two glasses of water, not one. And if a third person watches the transaction, there are three glasses of water, not one.
...
Again, according to MUI theory, everyday objects such as tables, chairs and the moon exist only as experiences of conscious observers. The moon I experience only exists when I look, and the moon you experience only exists when you look. We never see the same moon. We only see the moon icons we each construct each time we look."  

jim.c...@gmail.com

unread,
Jan 3, 2021, 11:02:17 AM1/3/21
to Metaphysical Speculations
I already provided the link in the previous comment where I quoted the passage. I don't see what you quoted as contradictory with a physicalist ontology.

But I would also add that the idea that our perceptions do not faithfully represent reality should give you pause if you think fundamental reality is mental. If we can't trust our own mentality, why would we suspect that fundamental reality is mental.

jim.c...@gmail.com

unread,
Jan 3, 2021, 11:10:53 AM1/3/21
to Metaphysical Speculations
To clarify why it wouldn't be contradictory with a  physicalist ontology.

If the mental is really physical, physical representations of an external reality that is also physical, then the representations of that mentality would be just representations. There would be physical stuff sitting behind tables, chairs, and the moon, but the mental representations (that which we identify as tables, chairs, and the moon) of that physical stuff would only exist in consciousness which is itself also physical.

Ashvin Pandurangi

unread,
Jan 3, 2021, 11:31:25 AM1/3/21
to Metaphysical Speculations
I went to the link and searched for "physicalist" and "ontology" and neither word appeared, so maybe you can just copy and paste what you are referring to.

"But I would also add that the idea that our perceptions do not faithfully represent reality should give you pause if you think fundamental reality is mental. If we can't trust our own mentality, why would we suspect that fundamental reality is mental."

Again, basic human logic and reasoning is NOT perception. We don't need to trust our perceptions to faithfully represent reality to trust some aspect of our reasoning to do so. 

"To clarify why it wouldn't be contradictory with a  physicalist ontology." 

This 'clarification' is completely circular reasoning, i.e. the 'mental' representations must be of something physical because everything 'mental' is actually physical. Please... 
On Sunday, January 3, 2021 at 11:02:17 AM UTC-5 jim.c...@gmail.com wrote:

jim.c...@gmail.com

unread,
Jan 3, 2021, 11:56:33 AM1/3/21
to Metaphysical Speculations
This is a simple misunderstanding. MUI theory is not idealism. It does not claim that all that exists are conscious perceptions. It claims that our conscious perceptions need not resemble the objective world, whatever nature the objective world might happen to take. MUI theory is compatible with a physicalist ontology, but MUI theory is not itself committed to any particular ontology.  

top of page 11


This 'clarification' is completely circular reasoning, i.e. the 'mental' representations must be of something physical because everything 'mental' is actually physical. Please...  

This is same reasoning of idealism only in reverse. But the questionable nature of our "mental" understanding of reality makes it even less plausible that reality is fundamentally mental.

Ashvin Pandurangi

unread,
Jan 3, 2021, 12:55:16 PM1/3/21
to Metaphysical Speculations
 Alright, but you left this part out:

"For all we know, we could be the lucky species, the one species in 70 million whose perceptual experiences just happen to resemble the true nature of an objective physical reality. Long odds, but not impossible. MUI theory does not, by itself, rule it out. It simply invites us to take a sober look at the odds ."

So MUI, by itself, does not technically rule out the possibility of physicalist ontology, but makes it so unlikely as to rule it out for all intents and purposes. 

There is no "questionable nature" of understanding for idealism, because Darwinian selection pressures on cognitive structures favor some veridical mathematical and logical reasoning, as you have repeatedly pointed out. If mental activity is all there is, then studying the patterns of thinking (logic/reason) is the same as studying the nature of being (ontology). Under physicalism, studying the patterns of thinking is simply looking at some epiphenomenal faculty of the human brain which has no necessary relation to the underlying reality, which then makes physicalism a self-defeating ontology.

jim.c...@gmail.com

unread,
Jan 3, 2021, 1:08:16 PM1/3/21
to Metaphysical Speculations
I wouldn't disagree with the part I left out but I think the Edelman paper argues that we likely do have perceptions that are not totally disconnected from reality as an extreme version of MUI would suggest. I would also argue that basic spacetime, although it may be emergent from a lower level physical reality, is also approximated in perceptions. This is in contrast to Hoffman who believes he can derive it from his framework.

Nothing I have written has suggested that mental representations are  epiphenomenal  or have no relation to underlying physical reality. They evolved from physical reality so, of course, they would necessarily model that reality, albeit in a limited and representative fashion. The desktop wouldn't be of any use if it didn't model the actual computer.

Ashvin Pandurangi

unread,
Jan 3, 2021, 9:53:01 PM1/3/21
to Metaphysical Speculations
How are Edelman's three categories any different than the 12 categories of understanding Kant (idealist) identified in the 18th century?

Quantity
Unity
Plurality
Totality

Quality
Reality
Negation 
Limitation

Relation
Inherence and Subsistence (substance and accident)
Causality and Dependence (cause and effect)
Community (reciprocity)

If the "lower level physical reality" is outside of space-time, then how is it "physical"?

Brad Walker

unread,
Jan 3, 2021, 10:31:25 PM1/3/21
to Metaphysical Speculations
How do non-idealists define "physical" when they say consciousness, whether fundamental or not, is physical? Consciousness is subject to physical causation? Bernardo seems to be the only person providing a crisp physical/nonphysical distinction i.e. quantities vs qualities. Is BK defining to his conclusion?

Santeri Satama

unread,
Jan 4, 2021, 12:05:58 AM1/4/21
to Metaphysical Speculations
"Physical" is basically defined by QFT and set theory, so under physicalist closure, consciousness is caused by QFT and set theory.

jim.c...@gmail.com

unread,
Jan 4, 2021, 8:38:19 AM1/4/21
to Metaphysical Speculations
A lot of people claim that Hoffman's position with MUI is no different from Kant. But Hoffman is arguing from a scientific and evolutionary perspective, not philosophy.

Edelman is applying his categories to evolution in a similar context in a critique of Hoffman's position.

David Sundaram

unread,
Jan 4, 2021, 9:05:51 AM1/4/21
to Metaphysical Speculations
On Sunday, January 3, 2021 at 8:31:25 PM UTC-7 Brad Walker wrote:

How do non-idealists define "physical" when they say consciousness, whether fundamental or not, is physical? Consciousness is subject to physical causation? Bernardo seems to be the only person providing a crisp physical/nonphysical distinction i.e. quantities vs qualities. Is BK defining to his conclusion?

This touches on an issue which I have been thinking about, to wit: in the final analysis, it doesn't matter much (to me at least) whether 'conciousnessness' is 'fundamental' or arises from 'matter'. I happen to think that 'matter' is just 'congealed' 'spirit' - all spiritual entities/amalgams being inherently conscious in the first place.

The 'point' which arises out of what Brad says is what quality/ies of Life are most creatively fecund and 'value-able' (in terms of en-Love-ability and en-Joy-ability of personal/subjective ex-peerience and ex-press-ion?

I would suggest that everything else (math, philosophy, etc,) is of secondary importance compared to the quality of the art of one's Life - like 'talking' about Love and Joy is compared to 'act'ually enJoying and Love-ing (exulting in and augmenting) the process of Creativity that is Life, d/b/a Being-Doing).

jim.c...@gmail.com

unread,
Jan 4, 2021, 9:57:08 AM1/4/21
to Metaphysical Speculations
Brad,

Consciousness can be physical in a similar same way the images on a television or in a VR headset are physical. Those arise from electronic circuits. In organisms, the images arise from electrochemical circuits. Part of the images that arise in an organism is the sense of self that appears to be experiencing reality. These images appear to us as distinct from external reality. They are composed of the same stuff as external reality but because they are representative they appear to be composed of something different. Consciousness itself is not an illusion but the appearance that our consciousness is composed of something different from external reality is an illusion. 

Consciousness itself arises in a distinct system in the brain that can affect the brain itself. This has been shown through neuro-feedback and bio-feedback training. As a distinct system, it can be causative just as a physical system of any type could potentially affect another system. From an evolutionary standpoint, consciousness arose to coordinate multiple sensory inputs into a unified whole to enable locomotion and complex learning. 

Ashvin Pandurangi

unread,
Jan 4, 2021, 11:50:31 AM1/4/21
to Metaphysical Speculations
"A lot of people claim that Hoffman's position with MUI is no different from Kant. But Hoffman is arguing from a scientific and evolutionary perspective, not philosophy.

Edelman is applying his categories to evolution in a similar context in a critique of Hoffman's position."

The point is that these are categories of understanding and do not undermine Hoffman's perceptual interface theory. Idealists (like Kant) have pointed out that our minds structure the world according to certain categories of understanding for a long time now, so Edelman is not saying anything new which contradicts idealism or Hoffman's MUI (which has made that philosophical position more scientifically rigorous). Therefore Edelman's "critique" is not a critique at all. 

You are also not explaining how our perceptions can be partially accurate representations of ontic reality if space-time is an emergent perceptual structure and therefore is not ontically real. 

jim.c...@gmail.com

unread,
Jan 4, 2021, 3:28:56 PM1/4/21
to Metaphysical Speculations
Are you even understanding Edelman's critique?

In essence, it is that certain types of veridical perceptions would be selected for by evolution? That would make Hoffman's position that no veridical perceptions would be selected for false.

Ashvin Pandurangi

unread,
Jan 4, 2021, 3:43:04 PM1/4/21
to Metaphysical Speculations
Jim,

You are failing to distinguish between perceptions and cognition. Edelman is suggesting that evolution will select for certain categories of understanding the world which promote fitness, such as temporal causality, unity in variable characteristics, and rank ordering of perceptions. All of those can be cognitively employed towards adaptive behavior without ANY veridical perception. This should be pretty easy to understand. And Hoffman's IPT predicts that is exactly what happens - an "interface" is a mode of categorically organizing data in a way that makes it useful for obtaining specific goals. 

Earlier you said, "The desktop wouldn't be of any use if it didn't model the actual computer. " That is 100% wrong.  The desktop is useful precisely because it does NOT veridically represent the underlying computer processes which are taking place, since the complexity of those veridical representations would overwhelm our ability to move towards specific goals and render the desktop useless. 

Brad Walker

unread,
Jan 4, 2021, 6:03:49 PM1/4/21
to Metaphysical Speculations
Jim, images are both physical and qualitative; there's a spatial structure of photon frequencies and there's a spatial structure of corresponding qualities. You're focusing on one side and conflating that as an explanation for the other. You seem to be implicitly invoking a homunculus that's aware of the representations. What physical entity exactly is conscious? Upon honest reflection, any strong emergence candidate is always a non sequitur and question-begging.

Consciousness is (naturally) required for a sense of self, but the converse isn't true.

Defining "physical" as that which can be influenced by physics is a meaningless (and virtue signalling) distinction, because all contender ontologies admit physical influence. "Physical" must be clearly defined to clearly delineate what is and isn't physicalism. If consciousness is nonphysical, which seems true by definition, physicalism is logically impossible. Apparently Bernardo's the only one attempting clear definitions and there's nothing better than the quantities/qualities distinction in academia.

Consciousness enabled locomotion? So all animals are conscious? Robots can dance better than most without consciousness.

Brad Walker

unread,
Jan 4, 2021, 9:21:52 PM1/4/21
to Metaphysical Speculations
To refute epiphenomenalism, physicalists must demonstrate a) whatever physical configuration equates to conscious states, is simplest and/or or b) is most probable. Otherwise one can expect evolution to produce intelligent behavior without consciousness, like machine learning algorithms do routinely. Then there's the lingering non sequitur of strong emergence.

Why is a unified whole necessary? Octopuses have several concentrations of neural tissue. Do they have several minds?

On Monday, January 4, 2021 at 7:57:08 AM UTC-7 jim.c...@gmail.com wrote:

Brad Walker

unread,
Jan 4, 2021, 9:30:44 PM1/4/21
to Metaphysical Speculations
Scott, Chalmers coined "identity cosmopsychism" in his "Idealism and the Mind-Body Problem" paper. In it he describes a "mystery" of the law of identity and one mind somehow being everything. Other than that (professional) problem, he thinks it's coherent. In it I think it's necessary, to provide an objective reality, for a superhuman subject to simulate (dream precisely) the universe for subsequent subjects. In my view, physicalism doesn't work, idealism is the most promising alternative ontology family, and identity cosmopsychism is the most readily coherent variant. Identity cosmopsychism, as you say, "evaporates" all the ancient philosophical conundrums with clear answers. Practicing ontology is an unsatisfying search for alternative coherent, explanatory ontologies.

On Monday, December 28, 2020 at 7:06:40 PM UTC-7 jse...@gmail.com wrote:
On Monday, December 28, 2020 at 4:56:27 AM UTC-10 Brad Walker wrote:
Excellent post, Scott. We're on the same page. Heuristically practicing ontology is incohering alternatives to identity cosmopsychism. Perhaps some day a superintelligent AI can confirm or deny coherent alternatives, supposing it decides consensus there is preferable socially to perpetual mysterianism.

Could you unpack what you mean by "incohering alternatives to identity cosmopyschism"? 

Brad Walker

unread,
Jan 4, 2021, 9:34:19 PM1/4/21
to Metaphysical Speculations
Identity cosmopsychism is opposed to non-identity constitutive cosmopsychism, which is one cosmic mind (somehow!) subdivided into several subjects.

Brad Walker

unread,
Jan 4, 2021, 9:38:32 PM1/4/21
to Metaphysical Speculations
Tangentially, from an idealist/theistic perspective, if God can subdivide into many subjects, why is death necessary?

jim.c...@gmail.com

unread,
Jan 5, 2021, 8:46:12 AM1/5/21
to Metaphysical Speculations
Look at it like this.

"Red" by itself is not veridical and not selected for. But ability to perceive the difference between ripe fruit which would appear to us as red from green fruit would be selected for.

I guess you still haven't actually read the Edelman paper.

 To move forward, we must determine whether perception can evolve to be truthful (thereby helping ground science more in physics, biology, and psychology, and less in metaphysics) in other ways than the one that the above quotes from HSP expose as absurd. At least three such ways suggest themselves  

 Categorical consistency — I call a perceptual channel (HSP, p.41), denoted by a function f : X → Y, CC-truthful if, when given as input any member x of a class of stimuli X, x ∈ X ⊂ X , it reliably2 evokes a representation f(x) = y ∈ Y. Here, X and Y are sets, each equipped with its own identity relation that defines set membership. Categorically consistent perceptual channels make it possible to perceive truthfully the identity (modulo irrelevant transformations and noise) between stimuli, as well as the recurrence or persistence of a stimulus over time. Example: recognizing the face of a familiar person as such, despite the usual variability in appearance

• Second-order isomorphism — a CC-truthful perceptual channel is SOI-truthful if both X and Y are metric spaces and, further, if the application of f : X → Y results in a reliable and sufficiently consistent mapping of the rank order of similarities between members of X to the rank order of similarities between their corresponding representations in Y. Example: perceiving two shades of   yellow to be more similar to each other than to a shade of green (think ripe and unripe bananas).

 • Causality — a CC-truthful perceptual channel is Cau-truthful if it reliably maps causal relations RX over elements of X to isomorphic causal relations RY over elements of Y. (Causality is of course a notoriously difficult concept (De Pierris and Friedman, 2013; Schaffer, 2009; Lagnado, Waldmann, Hagmayer, and Sloman, 2007); for our present purposes, it suffices, in the spirit of Hume (1748, 4.6), to define RX simply as a time-ordered pair of cause and effect (x t1 1 , x t2 2 ), where x1, x2 ∈ X and t2 = t1 + ∆t for some sufficiently small ∆t, with RY defined accordingly.) Example: taking thunder to be caused by lightning (while possibly remaining perfectly ignorant as to what each of them “really” is).

jim.c...@gmail.com

unread,
Jan 5, 2021, 9:05:53 AM1/5/21
to Metaphysical Speculations
Actually I think Edelman's critique when followed to its conclusion is quite devastating to Hoffman's view that reality is hidden from us. Quoting myself.

The brain, of course, is all about seeing relationships, identifying differences and similarities. It does this with learning and memory. What our senses present to us may not be veridical but the relationships in what is presented must be veridical or we could not interact consistently with the world. When people are fitted with prism glasses that turn everything upside down, they learn in a few weeks how to interact with the world using completely upside-down input. This is possible because the relationships between the objects are relatively the same. Regularity and consistency in the world still exists and the brain can learn about the regularity and how to operate with it. Hoffman almost acknowledges this when he writes: “Whereas in perception the selection pressures are almost uniformly away from veridicality, perhaps in math and logic the pressures are not so univocal, and partial accuracy is allowed.” I would expand Hoffman’s statement to include the ability to distinguish relationships in general. 

Ashvin Pandurangi

unread,
Jan 5, 2021, 9:14:55 AM1/5/21
to Metaphysical Speculations
Jim - I read the Edelman paper (it's really short) and the ONLY reason he uses the word "truthful" is because he is a materialist who is a priori committed to proving materialism, just like you are. Therefore, he takes Kant's categories of understanding and defines them to be "truthful perception" in an epic bout of circular reasoning. This is what happens when science becomes so divorced from philosophy (i.e. careful thinking) that scientists can longer distinguish their assumptions from their reasoning and conclusions. 

"I call a perceptual channel (HSP, p.41), denoted by a function f : X → Y, CC-truthful if, when given as input any member x of a class of stimuli X, x ∈ X ⊂ X , it reliably2 evokes a representation "

 Everyone agrees that 'perceptual inputs' reliably evoke representations... that is the entire basis of Hoffman's interface theory. If the interface did not reliably evoke representations, then it would be useless!

On Tuesday, January 5, 2021 at 8:46:12 AM UTC-5 jim.c...@gmail.com wrote:

Ashvin Pandurangi

unread,
Jan 5, 2021, 9:24:55 AM1/5/21
to Metaphysical Speculations
"The brain, of course, is all about seeing relationships, identifying differences and similarities. It does this with learning and memory. What our senses present to us may not be veridical but the relationships in what is presented must be veridical or we could not interact consistently with the world"  

Finally you are taking a productive step here. Nothing in the above is "devastating" to Hoffman's theory, but instead supports it. If the relations between 'objects' are more veridical than the 'objects' we are relating, then physicalist ontology cannot survive. End of story, time to move on. 

David Sundaram

unread,
Jan 5, 2021, 9:41:11 AM1/5/21
to Metaphysical Speculations
Brad Walker wrote:

Identity cosmopsychism is opposed to non-identity constitutive cosmopsychism, which is one cosmic mind (somehow!) subdivided into several subjects.

Maybe integrate both 'views' by 'thinking' 😁 this way and 'see' what then 'happens:

All 'thoughts' (precepts, perceptions, etc.) are 'living', i.e. energized and energizing, aspects of A PhenomenONE. Analogy: they are 'wave-generating' 'points' or 'nodes' on the 'fabric' of a vibrantly vibrating 'drumhead', except that they are also self-'exciting' by virtue of their own 'energy', not just 'excited' by the energy/ies emanating from other 'nodal' 'points'.

The 'thoughts' which any 'node' or 'point' has are a function of the "Who/What 'I' AM" 'identity' it 'thinks' (thought-chooses-creates) for itself at any given time-space juncture. Hence, for example, the dynamic back-and-forth dialog wherein 'BK' alternatingly shifts his and 'the Other' in his book "More than Allegory". Anyone can 'do' this sort of thing, i.e. 'have' this sort of experience, if and as s/he energy-etically concentrates and doing/having so, except of course the dialog will be phenomenologically 'unique' because it will be spectrumatically colored/meaning-slanted by Who or What s/he 'thinks' (energetically 'projects') s/he is and Who or What s/he energetically 'projects' 'the Other' to be. Witness Neale Donald Walsh's "Conversations with God" books.




jim.c...@gmail.com

unread,
Jan 5, 2021, 9:46:39 AM1/5/21
to Metaphysical Speculations
If the relations between 'objects' are more veridical than the 'objects' we are relating, then physicalist ontology cannot survive. End of story, time to move on. 

I don't see how you can conclude that especially since Hoffman's entire approach is based on the idea that nothing we know about reality is veridical.

"Objects" present another conundrum because it could be argued that "objects" are relationships. The table, chairs, and moon are not raw perceptions. In fact, it is hard to know what is raw perception vs perception that has been massaged and interpreted by the brain. A considerable amount of learning occurs in the infant to enable normal seeing. See Molyneux's problem to understand that perception of  "objects" has a significant learning component.

Ashvin Pandurangi

unread,
Jan 5, 2021, 10:20:16 AM1/5/21
to Metaphysical Speculations
"I don't see how you can conclude that especially since Hoffman's entire approach is based on the idea that nothing we know about reality is veridical. "

No, that's not his approach or claim... not even close. That's why he is pursuing a mathematically rigorous dynamic conscious agent model of reality, because it may shed light on the true nature of underlying reality. Maybe that's the problem - you don't understand what Hoffman is doing or claiming, so you think every little thing that comes up, like Edelman's paper, is somehow contradicting his theory. 

jim.c...@gmail.com

unread,
Jan 5, 2021, 8:26:04 PM1/5/21
to Metaphysical Speculations
The Case Against Reality: Why Evolution Hid the Truth from Our Eyes 

Oh, so your position is we can know the true nature of reality even though evolution has hidden it from us.

You object to Edelman's argument that some veridical perceptions could be selected for by evolution yet want to argue that (through logic, mathematics, or something?) we can break through the illusion to discover that reality is the same stuff as the illusion. It's illusion all the way down.

Ashvin Pandurangi

unread,
Jan 5, 2021, 9:17:27 PM1/5/21
to Metaphysical Speculations
Yes that is my position and it is Hoffman's position as well. It helps to read past the title of the book. 

I never objected to Edelman's argument, but I did repeatedly object to your mischaracterization of his argument as one that supports "veridical perceptions", which you continue to do. 

Here's another way of putting it - based on the latest science, if we believe any aspect of our experience or cognition can bring us closer to understanding fundamental reality, then physicalism/materialism must be a false ontology. 


jim.c...@gmail.com

unread,
Jan 6, 2021, 8:00:46 AM1/6/21
to Metaphysical Speculations
Edelman himself uses the term "perception". 

we believe any aspect of our experience or cognition can bring us closer to understanding fundamental reality,  

There's the key point. I don't think any aspect of experience or cognition can bring us closer to understanding fundamental reality. The conception that there is or could be a  "fundamental reality" is completely misguided, an effort to find meaning in some grand but ultimately wrong simplification of reality.

jim.c...@gmail.com

unread,
Jan 6, 2021, 12:03:24 PM1/6/21
to Metaphysical Speculations
To put it another way

 physicalism/materialism is a false ontology 

idealism is a false ontology

Where we got off on this discussion was where I mentioned I could accept a weaker version of Hoffman's theory. What I meant by that was MUI theory which does not have a ontological preference or requirement.

You have seemed to be arguing that MUI theory implies conscious realism whereas Hoffman himself says you can accept his interface theory of perception without accepting conscious realism. 

Ashvin Pandurangi

unread,
Jan 6, 2021, 4:04:24 PM1/6/21
to Metaphysical Speculations
So now you are claiming that there can be no fundamental reality (which is nonsensical... maybe you mean we can never know the fundamental reality?), yet our perceptions of the world are veridical to some extent?? Please try to explain that one to me. 

jim.c...@gmail.com

unread,
Jan 7, 2021, 10:01:15 AM1/7/21
to Metaphysical Speculations
The concept of a "fundamental reality" is flawed. Yes, it is two words, each with a meaning, but put together they are meaningless. If you want to think of it as we can never know "fundamental reality", then that is an approximation but not quite the same. 

Ashvin Pandurangi

unread,
Jan 7, 2021, 3:17:09 PM1/7/21
to Metaphysical Speculations
So when you say some of our perceptions are "veridical", what does that mean to you in relation to ontology?
Reply all
Reply to author
Forward
0 new messages