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This was a dead-end in the history of Western thought. We started an irrelevant definition of knowledge (Cartesian Rationalism where geometry is the paragon of

This was a dead-end in the history of Western thought. We started an irrelevant definition of knowledge (Cartesian Rationalism where geometry is the paragon of knowing) and arrived at equally irrelevant conclusions about metaphysics (Cartesian Dualism which eventual collapsed into Spinozaist monism (Hegel is correct in his assessment of Leibniz on this point)). Kant is trying to solve a set of non-problems with a highly innovative method that offers some seriously questionable solutions when you really get deep into German Idealism. The simply reality is that our knowledge and methods of understanding the physical world is more robust than the Rationalists would acknowledge, and our knowledge of our metal world is far more tenuous than we would care to accept. We really don't have access to as much of our minds as we intuitively think we do. The unravelling of this theory starts with Freud but modern psychology and neuroscience present a huge number of examples where it is very clear that we do not have direct access to the thing we call a unified consciousness or the self. The isn't about physics answering the question as much as the fact that the origin of mind and thinking will have a physical origin. Reductivism is equally played. Trying to reduce this process down to bits and atoms is probably not helpful or interesting. But it is really a moot point as to whether an emergent phenomenon is an ontologically separate thing from it's substrate. It is physical nonetheless in more or less the same way that we would think of the more basic entities. A form of soft-immaterialism might be secured in trying to ascribe existence to this emergent state of matter, but given what we know about people's ability to introspect their own consciousness I doubt that the traditional concept of 'soul' handed down to us from the Scholastic tradition can really be salvaged.

strogonoff 4y ago
This trying to salvage time-space as implicit objective reality is tired for reasons I won’t repeat. Saying “mind and thinking is rooted in physical reality” doesn’t make it so. That aside, not trying to discard them as illusions is appreciated.
- blululu 4y ago
  No-one said anything about space, time or objectivity. Those are all weird, but external reality is something we know just as well as we know internal reality. (Internalist conceptions of mind don't pan out). Saying mind and thinking can exist without any physical basis doesn't make it possible either, but I will point out that everyone I've ever met who was capable of thinking had a healthy living body. The arguments that have been deployed to show that incorporeal thinking is possible and the subjective knowledge is the only true knowledge have always been flawed in their theory of knowledge. They all treat geometry as the paragon of knowing. When, in fact, the rationalist mode of knowing is a rather peculiar and idiosyncratic form of knowledge that doesn't really generalize. In some highly reductive sense, you can argue that we don't really come into contact with an external reality, and people have. Though in the same sense we also don't come into contact with an internal reality except in an very unimpressive fashion. So while people have spun up plenty of complicated arguments to show that we know nothing about anything, in a very real sense we clearly know quite a lot about the world around us. We know that when someone is knocked unconscious they weren't off thinking great thoughts when their brain was flatlining (if/when they come back they confirm this). Our knowledge of this is, surprisingly more solid than our ability to accurately introspect our internal state of consciousness. As to what exactly changes when the innumerable pulses of neurons sprang back to life, that's a mystery. Something is happening. It is pretty clearly connected with thinking.
  - strogonoff 4y ago
    > Saying mind and thinking can exist without any physical basis doesn't make it possible either It doesn’t need to be made possible because it logically is. (Both approaches are possible, that is not even an argument.) But not only is it possible, I’d argue that in fact it is less contrived because there is one less construct (that “physical basis”) to will into being from nothingness. > in a very real sense we clearly know quite a lot about the world around us This is a good illustration of how everything looks like a nail to the hammer of STEM. I am a little sleepy to continue this argument properly, but while we (with our minds) have created some models that enabled us to do some things (which things, notably, effect our minds in every instance) there is no knowing of even the basic fundamentals about the world around us. Physics cannot be a sole tool for achieving such knowledge because questions such as “what actually exists” are outside of its purview—e.g., the idea of mind as the territory and perceived time-space as a map/interface is not at odds with physics (which in this scenario, while not under spotlight anymore, would along with other natural sciences still be recognized as a tool for effecting desired changes in the territory). Sadly, core philosophy, which purview these questions do fall under, is currently on the sidelines.

strogonoff 4y ago

This trying to salvage time-space as implicit objective reality is tired for reasons I won’t repeat. Saying “mind and thinking is rooted in physical reality” doesn’t make it so. That aside, not trying to discard them as illusions is appreciated.

blululu 4y ago
No-one said anything about space, time or objectivity. Those are all weird, but external reality is something we know just as well as we know internal reality. (Internalist conceptions of mind don't pan out). Saying mind and thinking can exist without any physical basis doesn't make it possible either, but I will point out that everyone I've ever met who was capable of thinking had a healthy living body. The arguments that have been deployed to show that incorporeal thinking is possible and the subjective knowledge is the only true knowledge have always been flawed in their theory of knowledge. They all treat geometry as the paragon of knowing. When, in fact, the rationalist mode of knowing is a rather peculiar and idiosyncratic form of knowledge that doesn't really generalize. In some highly reductive sense, you can argue that we don't really come into contact with an external reality, and people have. Though in the same sense we also don't come into contact with an internal reality except in an very unimpressive fashion. So while people have spun up plenty of complicated arguments to show that we know nothing about anything, in a very real sense we clearly know quite a lot about the world around us. We know that when someone is knocked unconscious they weren't off thinking great thoughts when their brain was flatlining (if/when they come back they confirm this). Our knowledge of this is, surprisingly more solid than our ability to accurately introspect our internal state of consciousness. As to what exactly changes when the innumerable pulses of neurons sprang back to life, that's a mystery. Something is happening. It is pretty clearly connected with thinking.
- strogonoff 4y ago
  > Saying mind and thinking can exist without any physical basis doesn't make it possible either It doesn’t need to be made possible because it logically is. (Both approaches are possible, that is not even an argument.) But not only is it possible, I’d argue that in fact it is less contrived because there is one less construct (that “physical basis”) to will into being from nothingness. > in a very real sense we clearly know quite a lot about the world around us This is a good illustration of how everything looks like a nail to the hammer of STEM. I am a little sleepy to continue this argument properly, but while we (with our minds) have created some models that enabled us to do some things (which things, notably, effect our minds in every instance) there is no knowing of even the basic fundamentals about the world around us. Physics cannot be a sole tool for achieving such knowledge because questions such as “what actually exists” are outside of its purview—e.g., the idea of mind as the territory and perceived time-space as a map/interface is not at odds with physics (which in this scenario, while not under spotlight anymore, would along with other natural sciences still be recognized as a tool for effecting desired changes in the territory). Sadly, core philosophy, which purview these questions do fall under, is currently on the sidelines.