5 ms·

“the universe is the extension of the self” is precisely the idea we are talking about. IMHO it is the only thing worth discussing. And yes you can derive new

by hnfong 3y ago

“the universe is the extension of the self” is precisely the idea we are talking about. IMHO it is the only thing worth discussing. And yes you can derive new “physics” with this idea alone.

skissane 3y ago
> “the universe is the extension of the self” is precisely the idea we are talking about. Idealists can take several possible approaches to the issue of how many people/minds exist: 1) Solipsism: only I exist, and everyone else is a figment of my imagination 2) Many minds: only minds ultimately exist, but many distinct minds exist (George Berkeley, John McTaggart) 3) Open individualism: I exist and everyone else exists too, but we are all ultimately the same person, and the idea that we are different people is an illusion (not necessarily an idealist view, but one open to an idealist to adopt; most famous notable proponent is Daniel Kolak; but Kolak in the introduction of his book I Am You extensively quotes the physicists Freeman Dyson and Erwin Schrödinger as expressing the same view) 4) Pan(en)theism: only one mind/person ultimately exists, but we are somehow "sub-minds"/"sub-persons" of that ultimate person. One might call that single ultimate person "God", albeit it is defining the term "God" in a very different way than classical Western theism does. Or, maybe we could call it the "Universe", or borrow Plato's term "the World Soul". (Maybe there is not much difference between (3) and (4), but (4) would view the distinction between different "sub-minds"/"sub-persons" as more "real" than (3) does.) 5) Panpsychism: everything in the universe (even individual atoms) is conscious, and hence has a distinct mind. This in a sense is a variant of (2), but proposes far more minds than Berkeley or McTaggart would ever have admitted. Not all panpsychists are idealists, but you can certainly be an idealist panpsychist Critics of idealism tend to focus on (1), but in practice (1) has never had any serious proponents. All serious idealists have espoused (2)-(5) (or maybe some other variation I've missed) See also the philosopher David Chalmers' paper in which he proposes his own taxonomy of idealisms, different from mine: https://philpapers.org/archive/CHAIAT-11.pdf https://philpapers.org/archive/CHAIAT-11.pdf As an idealist, my starting position is (2), although I have some sympathy for (4). > And yes you can derive new “physics” with this idea alone. I don't know exactly what you mean, but I'm not a fan of that kind of talk. We have to distinguish between physics the natural science, and the philosophical discipline of the philosophy of physics, which is a sub-discipline of the philosophy of science The idealism debate fundamentally belongs to metaphysics (although contemporary presentations often focus on it through the lens of philosophy of mind instead), but it has obvious consequences for other philosophical disciplines, including epistemology, philosophy of mind, philosophy of science, and indeed philosophy of physics But while adopting idealism must lead us to a different philosophy of physics, the actual content of physics the natural science is unchanged. Physics the natural science is ultimately just a bunch of mathematical tools for predicting future observations. Those tools, and how you use them, are exactly the same whether you are a materialist, an idealist, a dualist, or none of the above. The only difference is your answer to the philosophical debates about what those tools ultimately are, or what they ultimately mean.
- hnfong 3y ago
  I'll admit I'm not too prepared to explicitly state what I meant by the line, but I'd personally take a more nuanced approach than "Those tools, and how you use them, are exactly the same whether you are a materialist, an idealist, a dualist, or none of the above". I'll say that under standard laboratory conditions they should probably be the same most of the time. I hope you'll agree with me that *assuming* there are divergent predictions made by the "mind-first" approaches, they should be studied together with physics. Otherwise physics would become a study of idealized systems, much like insisting on Newtonian maths when the principles of relativity and quantum mechanics were discovered.
  - skissane 3y ago
    > I'll say that under standard laboratory conditions they should probably be the same most of the time. I hope you'll agree with me that assuming there are divergent predictions made by the "mind-first" approaches, they should be studied together with physics. Can you give me an example of how a "mind-first" approach might give a divergent prediction, as to the outcome of a practically feasible experiment or observation? Maybe some versions of idealism might produce divergent predictions, but I don't believe divergent predictions are necessary to idealism, and many versions of idealism intentionally eschew divergent predictions. > Otherwise physics would become a study of idealized systems, much like insisting on Newtonian maths when the principles of relativity and quantum mechanics were discovered. Physics is a system for predicting future observations given past observations. Relativity and QM won because they generated more accurate future predictions than their predecessors. But what, ultimately, is it that we are observing? Do the theoretical constructs proposed by physics (particles, waves, fields, forces, strings, branes, etc) "really" exist, or are they just abstract conceptual tools for accurate prediction generation? What does "really" even mean in that question? These are all philosophical questions, and idealism is one family of possible answers to (some of those) philosophical questions–but I don't see how that makes any difference to the whole business of generating accurate predictions of future observations–which is all that physics proper actually is, has ever been, or ever will be.
    - 3y ago

by hnfong 3y ago

“the universe is the extension of the self” is precisely the idea we are talking about. IMHO it is the only thing worth discussing. And yes you can derive new “physics” with this idea alone.

skissane 3y ago

> “the universe is the extension of the self” is precisely the idea we are talking about. Idealists can take several possible approaches to the issue of how many people/minds exist: 1) Solipsism: only I exist, and everyone else is a figment of my imagination 2) Many minds: only minds ultimately exist, but many distinct minds exist (George Berkeley, John McTaggart) 3) Open individualism: I exist and everyone else exists too, but we are all ultimately the same person, and the idea that we are different people is an illusion (not necessarily an idealist view, but one open to an idealist to adopt; most famous notable proponent is Daniel Kolak; but Kolak in the introduction of his book I Am You extensively quotes the physicists Freeman Dyson and Erwin Schrödinger as expressing the same view) 4) Pan(en)theism: only one mind/person ultimately exists, but we are somehow "sub-minds"/"sub-persons" of that ultimate person. One might call that single ultimate person "God", albeit it is defining the term "God" in a very different way than classical Western theism does. Or, maybe we could call it the "Universe", or borrow Plato's term "the World Soul". (Maybe there is not much difference between (3) and (4), but (4) would view the distinction between different "sub-minds"/"sub-persons" as more "real" than (3) does.) 5) Panpsychism: everything in the universe (even individual atoms) is conscious, and hence has a distinct mind. This in a sense is a variant of (2), but proposes far more minds than Berkeley or McTaggart would ever have admitted. Not all panpsychists are idealists, but you can certainly be an idealist panpsychist Critics of idealism tend to focus on (1), but in practice (1) has never had any serious proponents. All serious idealists have espoused (2)-(5) (or maybe some other variation I've missed) See also the philosopher David Chalmers' paper in which he proposes his own taxonomy of idealisms, different from mine: https://philpapers.org/archive/CHAIAT-11.pdf https://philpapers.org/archive/CHAIAT-11.pdf As an idealist, my starting position is (2), although I have some sympathy for (4). > And yes you can derive new “physics” with this idea alone. I don't know exactly what you mean, but I'm not a fan of that kind of talk. We have to distinguish between physics the natural science, and the philosophical discipline of the philosophy of physics, which is a sub-discipline of the philosophy of science The idealism debate fundamentally belongs to metaphysics (although contemporary presentations often focus on it through the lens of philosophy of mind instead), but it has obvious consequences for other philosophical disciplines, including epistemology, philosophy of mind, philosophy of science, and indeed philosophy of physics But while adopting idealism must lead us to a different philosophy of physics, the actual content of physics the natural science is unchanged. Physics the natural science is ultimately just a bunch of mathematical tools for predicting future observations. Those tools, and how you use them, are exactly the same whether you are a materialist, an idealist, a dualist, or none of the above. The only difference is your answer to the philosophical debates about what those tools ultimately are, or what they ultimately mean.

hnfong 3y ago
I'll admit I'm not too prepared to explicitly state what I meant by the line, but I'd personally take a more nuanced approach than "Those tools, and how you use them, are exactly the same whether you are a materialist, an idealist, a dualist, or none of the above". I'll say that under standard laboratory conditions they should probably be the same most of the time. I hope you'll agree with me that *assuming* there are divergent predictions made by the "mind-first" approaches, they should be studied together with physics. Otherwise physics would become a study of idealized systems, much like insisting on Newtonian maths when the principles of relativity and quantum mechanics were discovered.
- skissane 3y ago
  > I'll say that under standard laboratory conditions they should probably be the same most of the time. I hope you'll agree with me that assuming there are divergent predictions made by the "mind-first" approaches, they should be studied together with physics. Can you give me an example of how a "mind-first" approach might give a divergent prediction, as to the outcome of a practically feasible experiment or observation? Maybe some versions of idealism might produce divergent predictions, but I don't believe divergent predictions are necessary to idealism, and many versions of idealism intentionally eschew divergent predictions. > Otherwise physics would become a study of idealized systems, much like insisting on Newtonian maths when the principles of relativity and quantum mechanics were discovered. Physics is a system for predicting future observations given past observations. Relativity and QM won because they generated more accurate future predictions than their predecessors. But what, ultimately, is it that we are observing? Do the theoretical constructs proposed by physics (particles, waves, fields, forces, strings, branes, etc) "really" exist, or are they just abstract conceptual tools for accurate prediction generation? What does "really" even mean in that question? These are all philosophical questions, and idealism is one family of possible answers to (some of those) philosophical questions–but I don't see how that makes any difference to the whole business of generating accurate predictions of future observations–which is all that physics proper actually is, has ever been, or ever will be.
  - 3y ago