Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Club for Open-Minded Discussion & Debate

[Lagayascienza]

I agree that Idealism, and all of the post-modernist nonsense that flowed from it, are not much use. But I'm not sure that Transcendental IIdealism is necessarily incompatible with science. If I thought that, then that door which remains ever-so-slightly ajar for transcendental idealism, would be firmly and completely shut. Husserl was very open to science and certainly was not trying to undermine it with Phenomenology. His is just a slightly different, and perhaps sometimes helpful, way of looking at things. But real science starts where Phenomenology ends. Phenomenology did not get us to the moon and it won't put a lander on Enceladus or Europa or solve the climate crisis. In philosophy, it seems to me that Idealism is just an idea that cannot be (yet) disproved. However, we cannot disprove the gods of religion either. But that is no argument for me to believe in them. My brief dalliance with Idealism was just so that I could understand Husserl's phenomenology. And I have sometimes played Devil's advocate in threads where I felt that that folks were trying to make formal logic and a materialist reading of reality do more than it is currently capable of. But, in the end, I still believe that materialism, determinism and science are the royal road to truth and knowledge about the physical universe and its workings. Nothing else can touch it.

[Lagayascienza]

One thing I did find useful about phenomenology is that it made me see more clearly what is given in consciousness. You may remember when I wrote about my experience of looking at a sunset and forgetting all I knew about astrophysics and just experiencing what was there. It was something akin to a "peak" experience that mystics speak of. It was really quite profound. However, there is, no doubt, a good scientific explanation for this too. Something was happening in my physical brain, my physical brain was doing something slightly different to what it normally does to cause the experience. I do not take it as proof of mysticism as some would. Consciousness, in all its variety, is just what physical brains do. There is nothing "spooky" about it.

[Count Lucanor]

I agree that Idealism, and all of the post-modernist nonsense that flowed from it, are not much use. But I'm not sure that Transcendental IIdealism is necessarily incompatible with science. If I thought that, then that door which remains ever-so-slightly ajar for transcendental idealism, would be firmly and completely shut. Husserl was very open to science and certainly was not trying to undermine it with Phenomenology. His is just a slightly different, and perhaps sometimes helpful, way of looking at things.

For Transcendental Idealism, there are no REAL spatiotemporal objects, only appearances of spatiotemporal objects, and the spatial-temporality is provided by the subject’s cognition, and that includes causation. If the laws of nature are not really about the occurrence of things and events independent of a subject’s mind, it follows that not only the matters of science cannot relate to intrinsic laws that can be discovered, but the practice of science itself loses all meaning, since it’s all happening in the subject’s head, sort of an illusion of intersubjective agreements about real objects. Empirical realism makes no sense if one cannot say anything about the objective existence of other subjects. The inherent solipsism of Transcendental Idealism and its antirealism is often brought up as its main (unresolved) problem, which contrasts with the views that, opposed to this tradition, postulate scientific realism. Of course, when we get to Heidegger, he just assumes the empirical realism of Transcendental Idealism, but that doesn’t make it less of a problem. There’s a reason why Idealist phenomenologists cannot help but fall to the temptation of asserting the ideality of objects while denying science access to objective truths.

But real science starts where Phenomenology ends.

I agree with that and will add that phenomenology in general, not necessarily Idealist Phenomenology (such as Husserl’s and Heidegger’s) can be very helpful. I don’t support a strict demarcation between science and philosophy, or science and metaphysics.

Phenomenology did not get us to the moon and it won't put a lander on Enceladus or Europa or solve the climate crisis. In philosophy, it seems to me that Idealism is just an idea that cannot be (yet) disproved. However, we cannot disprove the gods of religion either. But that is no argument for me to believe in them. My brief dalliance with Idealism was just so that I could understand Husserl's phenomenology. And I have sometimes played Devil's advocate in threads where I felt that that folks were trying to make formal logic and a materialist reading of reality do more than it is currently capable of. But, in the end, I still believe that materialism, determinism and science are the royal road to truth and knowledge about the physical universe and its workings. Nothing else can touch it.

Yes, you are right. The idea that something, while not being firmly asserted, cannot be dismissed without being disproven, is of no use, specially when dealing with the typical counterfactual arguments of epistemological nihilists.

[popeye1945]

It is just I have never run into anyone who so totally didn't get any of it. Now, if you want to understand, take it one issue at a time, and I shall be pleased to engage.

OK, let’s see where it goes. This is your original statement:

We cannot know if there is an objective physical world out there, our world is entirely subjective.

Now I ask: how does it compare with this other one of mine?

1. There’s a world out there, which includes objects, things happening (science, for example), and other subjects of a biological nature and physical shape (such as Tesla and Einstein).
Are they entirely compatible, partially compatible, or not compatible at all?

Modern science states that it is all energy, in Spinoza's time all was substance. According to Spinoza, we come to know the world of objects because they alter the state of our biology at rest; this alteration is experience to us and experience is meaning. You seem to support the concept called naive realism, which is to say, that things are just as they appear. Now, what Spinoza understood was perfectly reasonable considering the science of the time, but even here, it is inescapable that experience/meaning is entirely subjective, for the experience/meaning belongs to the subject and never the object. Even where you replace substance with energy the process is the same though not perhaps obvious. When you replace substance with energy the subject does not experience the source but experiences the effects of the source through the alterations of the subject's body.

One's apparent reality then, is a biological readout, it is a biological interpretation, alter the biology through injury or drugs, and you alter one's apparent reality. So, in Spinoza's analogy it is the object that alters/gives one experience/meaning, while in the case of energy, it is energy altering one's biology and the body interprets that energy as an object, which is experience/meaning. This also means that all organisms are reactive creatures and that the earth and the cosmos are causes of the reactions of said organisms, the reactions of the organisms then, in turn, become causes to the physical world and the cosmos, reaction is then the means of being the earth not of the earth but a functional part of a whole. Everything in your outside world is an object including your own body and that of other organisms. Try this on, we know that in the real world as opposed to apparent reality, there is no such thing as sound or color without ears or eyes to be altered by the energy frequencies that produce the experience of sound or color in the organism. As Tesla stated, if you wish to understand reality, you need to think in terms of energy, frequencies, and vibrations, so without the organism, there are no things just energy frequencies and vibrations which amount to patterns of energy. Granted it is a wild dream world, but who was it said, reality is stranger than you can imagine. Tesla and Einstein are objects in the world, as you are. Does any of this make sense to you?

[popeye1945]

One thing I did find useful about phenomenology is that it made me see more clearly what is given in consciousness. You may remember when I wrote about my experience of looking at a sunset and forgetting all I knew about astrophysics and just experiencing what was there. It was something akin to a "peak" experience that mystics speak of. It was really quite profound. However, there is, no doubt, a good scientific explanation for this too. Something was happening in my physical brain, my physical brain was doing something slightly different to what it normally does to cause the experience. I do not take it as proof of mysticism as some would. Consciousness, in all its variety, is just what physical brains do. There is nothing "spooky" about it.

Lagayscienza.

I had the same experience where one loses one's self, an awesome experience. My experience took place in a panoramic view of a great mountain range in the Arctic, it was the grandest site I had ever experienced to start with. I take it as a sign of a greater reality than the one of everyday reality where the mind is scattered in distraction much of the time. Also, it ties in with what native people speak of as having a spiritual connection to the land. Nothing spooky about it, I agree, it is just a brief glimpse into a greater reality, back into which we go.

[Count Lucanor]

It is just I have never run into anyone who so totally didn't get any of it. Now, if you want to understand, take it one issue at a time, and I shall be pleased to engage.

OK, let’s see where it goes. This is your original statement:

We cannot know if there is an objective physical world out there, our world is entirely subjective.

Now I ask: how does it compare with this other one of mine?

1. There’s a world out there, which includes objects, things happening (science, for example), and other subjects of a biological nature and physical shape (such as Tesla and Einstein).
Are they entirely compatible, partially compatible, or not compatible at all?

Modern science states that it is all energy, in Spinoza's time all was substance. According to Spinoza, we come to know the world of objects because they alter the state of our biology at rest; this alteration is experience to us and experience is meaning. You seem to support the concept called naive realism, which is to say, that things are just as they appear. Now, what Spinoza understood was perfectly reasonable considering the science of the time, but even here, it is inescapable that experience/meaning is entirely subjective, for the experience/meaning belongs to the subject and never the object. Even where you replace substance with energy the process is the same though not perhaps obvious. When you replace substance with energy the subject does not experience the source but experiences the effects of the source through the alterations of the subject's body.

One's apparent reality then, is a biological readout, it is a biological interpretation, alter the biology through injury or drugs, and you alter one's apparent reality. So, in Spinoza's analogy it is the object that alters/gives one experience/meaning, while in the case of energy, it is energy altering one's biology and the body interprets that energy as an object, which is experience/meaning. This also means that all organisms are reactive creatures and that the earth and the cosmos are causes of the reactions of said organisms, the reactions of the organisms then, in turn, become causes to the physical world and the cosmos, reaction is then the means of being the earth not of the earth but a functional part of a whole. Everything in your outside world is an object including your own body and that of other organisms. Try this on, we know that in the real world as opposed to apparent reality, there is no such thing as sound or color without ears or eyes to be altered by the energy frequencies that produce the experience of sound or color in the organism. As Tesla stated, if you wish to understand reality, you need to think in terms of energy, frequencies, and vibrations, so without the organism, there are no things just energy frequencies and vibrations which amount to patterns of energy. Granted it is a wild dream world, but who was it said, reality is stranger than you can imagine. Tesla and Einstein are objects in the world, as you are. Does any of this make sense to you?

We were going to take one issue at a time, so then I asked a pretty straightforward question: two statements, one mine, one yours, how do they compare? Are they entirely compatible, partially compatible, or not compatible at all?

And that was your response, going around the bushes and not engaging with the first issue in front of you. Then you complain that you “have never run into anyone who so totally didn't get any of it.”

[popeye1945]

It is just I have never run into anyone who so totally didn't get any of it. Now, if you want to understand, take it one issue at a time, and I shall be pleased to engage.

OK, let’s see where it goes. This is your original statement:

We cannot know if there is an objective physical world out there, our world is entirely subjective.

Now I ask: how does it compare with this other one of mine?:

1. There’s a world out there, which includes objects, things happening (science, for example) and other subjects of a biological nature and physical shape (such as Tesla and Einstein).
Are they entirely compatible, partially compatible or not compatible at all?

The reference point of necessity is the conscious subject and the answer is for you, yes, the world of objects is compatible with your everyday/apparent reality. Your reality, however, is a biological readout, a biological interpretation, you're not experiencing ultimate reality, you're experiencing the effects/the alterations it makes to your biology. All knowing is subjective, there just is no other way, meaning of necessity your apparent reality is entirely subjective, you can never prove there is a physical world out there, a world of objects. If this doesn't do it, I have no idea what the blockage is to your understanding.

[Count Lucanor]

It is just I have never run into anyone who so totally didn't get any of it. Now, if you want to understand, take it one issue at a time, and I shall be pleased to engage.

OK, let’s see where it goes. This is your original statement:

We cannot know if there is an objective physical world out there, our world is entirely subjective.

Now I ask: how does it compare with this other one of mine?:

1. There’s a world out there, which includes objects, things happening (science, for example) and other subjects of a biological nature and physical shape (such as Tesla and Einstein).
Are they entirely compatible, partially compatible or not compatible at all?

The reference point of necessity is the conscious subject and the answer is for you, yes, the world of objects is compatible with your everyday/apparent reality.

My everyday/apparent reality is a world out there, which includes objects, things happening (science, for example) and other subjects of a biological nature and physical shape (such as Tesla and Einstein). If the world of objects is compatible with that, then your statement asserting that “we cannot know if there is an objective physical world out there, our world is entirely subjective” turns out to be false.

your apparent reality is entirely subjective, you can never prove there is a physical world out there, a world of objects.

That directly contradicts what you just said and we’re back to square one.

If this doesn't do it, I have no idea what the blockage is to your understanding.

Yes, all my notions of reality and sense of understanding are crumbling. The idea that I can ask a simple question of one issue at a time, with a hint a the possible answers (yes, no or half way between the two) and still continue to receive something else, which was the reason the inquiry was required in the first place, is simply not absorbable by the available functioning neurons in my brain. I’m just not up to that level, so I’ll quit trying. Good luck.

[popeye1945]

Long life and prosperity!

[Sy Borg]

Thank you, Mr Spock.

[popeye1945]

Thank you, Mr Spock.

Where no man has ventured warp drive Mr. Scot!!

[popeye1945]

If all experience/knowledge/meaning is subjective, and the only way we know a world is through what is out there altering the resting state of our biology. This is a biological readout. We then attribute this experience to a completely meaningless world, how on earth could that be deemed an objective world? We don't experience the source; we experience the source's effects upon us. We are played by the earth and the cosmos like an instrument, and the melody played is that of our apparent reality. Granted there is energy out there, but objects like sound and color are emergent qualities of our altered biology. Apparent reality our everyday reality is a projection of biological experiences. Tesla, " If you wish to understand reality, think in terms of energy, frequencies, and vibrations." If you think otherwise, you must be supporting naive realism, which states things are just as they appear. In which case there would be nothing to wonder about.

[Sy Borg]

Thank you, Mr Spock.

Where no man has ventured warp drive Mr. Scot!!

Arrr, Mr Spock, the warp drive is down and I cannae say if I can fix it before the whole thing blows!

I don't think a lack of absolutes renders reality meaningless. Rather, it's the relativity between things that brings meaning.

[popeye1945]

Thank you, Mr Spock.

Where no man has ventured warp drive Mr. Scot!!

Arrr, Mr Spock, the warp drive is down and I cannae say if I can fix it before the whole thing blows!

I don't think a lack of absolutes renders reality meaningless. Rather, it's the relativity between things that brings meaning.

Relativity underlines our reactive nature and the reality of being part of something larger than ourselves. Reaction is relativity, the meaning of which is the subject's property alone, and never the object's property. The physical world or apparent reality is a biological readout, it is not the knowing of ultimate reality, it is but the emergent property of its effects/or alterations to our biological natures at rest. We are the instruments of the universe, and the melody it plays upon us is meaning in the form of an apparent reality, our everyday reality. It is a weird situation that makes the organism the source of all meanings. Biology is the measure and the meaning of all things. Another way of saying what you just said is, the relation between subject and object brings about meaning for the subject, at which time the subject then bestows that meaning onto a meaningless world, forgetting in the moment its projections.

[Sy Borg]

Thank you, Mr Spock.

Where no man has ventured warp drive Mr. Scot!!

Arrr, Mr Spock, the warp drive is down and I cannae say if I can fix it before the whole thing blows!

I don't think a lack of absolutes renders reality meaningless. Rather, it's the relativity between things that brings meaning.

Relativity underlines our reactive nature and the reality of being part of something larger than ourselves.

I don't see that at all. Consider the relativity between the Sun and the Earth, or the Earth and humans. Scale matters - and a great deal.

Reaction is relativity, the meaning of which is the subject's property alone, and never the object's property. The physical world or apparent reality is a biological readout, it is not the knowing of ultimate reality, it is but the emergent property of its effects/or alterations to our biological natures at rest.

It's just epistemic uncertainty. We don't have to know everything, which is just as well because there's too much to know to learn in a lifetime.

We are the instruments of the universe, and the melody it plays upon us is meaning in the form of an apparent reality, our everyday reality. It is a weird situation that makes the organism the source of all meanings. Biology is the measure and the meaning of all things. Another way of saying what you just said is, the relation between subject and object brings about meaning for the subject, at which time the subject then bestows that meaning onto a meaningless world, forgetting in the moment its projections.

I don't even see us as instruments of the universe. Most of the stuff of universe consists of plasma and dark matter, and we don't think these are sentient. There a small percentage of rare, precious rock, but almost all of it is abiotic. So we are exudations of the Earth, driven by a combination of the Sun's current energy and its stored energy in the planet's core, a remnant of the early solar system.

That subjects mainly find meaning in that which involves subjects in no surprise. Is biology the measure and meaning of all things, or just the first step in the wakening of matter. I don't see humans as an end product but the first model of a new series, so to speak, like Windows 1.0.