8 ms·

Earlier today, I got around to viewing the video you linked to in your first reply. As I have been looking into this issue for several years, its trajectory is

Earlier today, I got around to viewing the video you linked to in your first reply. As I have been looking into this issue for several years, its trajectory is familiar: start from a re-statement of Frank Jackson's 'knowledge argument' from "Epiphenomenal Qualia", assume that this shows consciousness to be inexplicable as a physical process, jump to the conclusion that consciousness is the fundamental reality on which the physical world supervenes, and throw in some arguments from incredulity to coax the reluctant to make this rather huge leap - plus, in this video, a smattering of vitalism. Jackson's knowledge argument had been fully anticipated by (and probably inspired by, I would guess) Bertrand Russell's aphorism "It is obvious that a man who can see knows things that a blind man cannot know; but a blind man can know the whole of physics." [The Analysis of Matter, 1927.] Fair enough, but where does idealism stand? Is there any non-circular argument for the proposition that learning all of idealism (or any specific variety of panpsychism or dualism, for that matter) would achieve for Russell's blind man what knowing all of physics cannot? Will he come to know what it is like to see the world?

mekoka 2y ago
What you perceive as a "huge leap" is not so much the promotion of consciousness as fundamental, but rather the demotion of matter from that same stance. The former is simply a byproduct of the latter. That in the process it seems to interlock so well with findings in various fields of study should admittedly be considered for now as just a happy accident. But we've abided by the law of parsimony to orient our inquiries on much less hints. > assume that this shows consciousness to be inexplicable as a physical process, jump to the conclusion that consciousness is the fundamental reality on which the physical world supervenes, and throw in some arguments from incredulity to coax the reluctant to make this rather huge leap You must ensure to have a proper grasp of the chasm between qualia and conceptual knowing that is pointed at in the hard problem of consciousness. Anyone who does should see how removed from physical processes qualia are. It's just self-evident, not a belief. The experience of a smell is not a thought. You don't reason the taste of chocolate. Those "things" sit in their own mysterious "weirdness". We experience reality in exactly two ways. Consciousness and matter. Those are the only two big mysteries. So, either matter is first, consciousness is first, or they co-arise independently and somehow coalesce. Those are the three possibilities. To declare any one to be a "huge leap" implies that you conceive of another as more acceptable. If by "huge leap" you mean specifically anything that is not materialism, note that of the three propositions, materialism is by far the least parsimonious and the one that creates the most problems. We culturally favor it as the default stance for two reasons. First, our perception of reality is biased to it. Second, we've had great success studying that perceived reality with science. But as Russell noted, science has only explained how the world works, not what the world is. We've traditionally approached the latter question starting with a "rookie mistake", as Donald Hoffman puts it. We assumed that science also pointed at the world being material. Under analysis, that assumption crumbles, as it's revealed to be built upon other unchecked assumptions, that cause many problems in philosophy and in physics. We have two possible alternatives to materialism. Of the two, consciousness as sole primitive is the most parsimonious and the one which solves most problems in the process, while creating the least. > Is there any non-circular argument for the proposition that learning all of idealism (or any specific variety of panpsychism or dualism, for that matter) would achieve for Russell's blind man what knowing all of physics cannot? I'm not sure that I understood your question here, but there's no such proposition. Idealism is a field of inquiry. It's a set of arguments that eliminate matter as a possible candidate for the basis of reality. Like physics, or any other philosophy, it belongs to conceptual knowledge. It can't give you access to experiential knowing.
- mannykannot 2y ago
  We should start with the question I posed, as this is the crux of the issue here, and without it, everything else here is moot. I will endeavor to set it out as clearly as I can. As you put great weight on the 'hard problem' being an insurmountable one for (and only for) materialism, I am sure you are well aware of the seminal importance, for that premise, of what has become known as the 'Knowledge Argument' from Frank Jackson's paper "Epiphenomenal Qualia", and in particular, a thought experiment from that paper which goes by several names (such as 'Mary the Neuroscientist'), and which was called, by the philosopher Philip Goff, "the greatest argument against materialism." This argument has several antecedents, including C. D. Broad's argument that chemistry cannot tell us what ammonia smells like, and, as I mentioned in my previous post, Russells aphorism "it is obvious that a man who can see knows things that a blind man cannot know; but a blind man can know the whole of physics." All these arguments are doing essentially the same thing: pumping the intuition that knowing what it is like to see colors (or have any other phenomenal experience) is not something that could ever be learned by studying the physical sciences (I say they pump the intuition because it is not actually an established fact that the premise is correct, but to be clear, I think it is, at least for human consciousness.) There is a certain amount of indirection at work here, in specifying only the physical sciences. We get an equally valid question by substituting other academic disciplines for the physical sciences, and in particular, of course, any philosophy of mind: they do not get a pass on this by being anti-materialist, and certainly any philosophy - such as idealism - which is premised first and foremost on the reality and significance of the hard problem, will have to confront this question (among many others) before it can be regarded as the solution to this problem and as providing an explanation of consciousness. Your reply is apparently that in this respect, idealism is no different than materialism - it will not enable Russell's blind man to know what it is like to see - from which it follows that the knowledge argument cannot be used by idealists against materialism. I am interested in learning, then, what you - and, by extension, idealists - regard as convincing arguments for there being a hard problem for materialism, specifically.
  - mekoka 2y ago
    > I say they pump the intuition because it is not actually an established fact that the premise is correct, but to be clear, I think it is, at least for human consciousness. I don't see what's being pumped. As we know from the incompleteness theorem, some truths cannot be proven. The fact of our awareness is another that's often doubted by the same people that doubt the divide separating qualia and conceptual knowing. Has their difficulty to grasp at these intuitions somehow become the burden of those who access them as self-evident? The hard problem is a linchpin. For those who get it, materialism starts to unravel. Those who don't, think those who do are making stuff up, but they also can't give a single example to counter the argument, nor can they conceive for themselves an entirely novel experience purely out of thought. They can't imagine a new color, think a new taste, conceive of a new sense. > Your reply is apparently that in this respect, idealism is no different than materialism - it will not enable Russell's blind man to know what it is like to see - from which it follows that the knowledge argument cannot be used by idealists against materialism. As I said, idealism is only a philosophy. It's mostly a process of elimination resting on conjectures such as the hard problem. As possibilities are removed, remaining candidates hint at the likeliest direction, but it's indeed not a final realization. There are some metaphysical speculations resting atop the foundations that reality is mind first. But I'm personally much less invested in speculations. I find the challenge of pulling our cultural head out of the sand of implausibility more of a concern. Depending how curious (and open-minded) you are about "knowledge" that get the "blind man to know what it is like to see", I'd suggest to look into practices that have this as their main goal. They're about engaging consciousness directly with immediate experience (the senses) and existential curiosity (I am aware that I am, but what am I?) to cultivate the seed of an eventual realization. They're known under the umbrella term "nonduality". As an introduction, I suggest this selection of texts spanning multiple nondual traditions aggregated and read by a Buddhist nun https://www.youtube.com/@SamaneriJayasara https://www.youtube.com/@SamaneriJayasara.

mekoka 2y ago

What you perceive as a "huge leap" is not so much the promotion of consciousness as fundamental, but rather the demotion of matter from that same stance. The former is simply a byproduct of the latter. That in the process it seems to interlock so well with findings in various fields of study should admittedly be considered for now as just a happy accident. But we've abided by the law of parsimony to orient our inquiries on much less hints. > assume that this shows consciousness to be inexplicable as a physical process, jump to the conclusion that consciousness is the fundamental reality on which the physical world supervenes, and throw in some arguments from incredulity to coax the reluctant to make this rather huge leap You must ensure to have a proper grasp of the chasm between qualia and conceptual knowing that is pointed at in the hard problem of consciousness. Anyone who does should see how removed from physical processes qualia are. It's just self-evident, not a belief. The experience of a smell is not a thought. You don't reason the taste of chocolate. Those "things" sit in their own mysterious "weirdness". We experience reality in exactly two ways. Consciousness and matter. Those are the only two big mysteries. So, either matter is first, consciousness is first, or they co-arise independently and somehow coalesce. Those are the three possibilities. To declare any one to be a "huge leap" implies that you conceive of another as more acceptable. If by "huge leap" you mean specifically anything that is not materialism, note that of the three propositions, materialism is by far the least parsimonious and the one that creates the most problems. We culturally favor it as the default stance for two reasons. First, our perception of reality is biased to it. Second, we've had great success studying that perceived reality with science. But as Russell noted, science has only explained how the world works, not what the world is. We've traditionally approached the latter question starting with a "rookie mistake", as Donald Hoffman puts it. We assumed that science also pointed at the world being material. Under analysis, that assumption crumbles, as it's revealed to be built upon other unchecked assumptions, that cause many problems in philosophy and in physics. We have two possible alternatives to materialism. Of the two, consciousness as sole primitive is the most parsimonious and the one which solves most problems in the process, while creating the least. > Is there any non-circular argument for the proposition that learning all of idealism (or any specific variety of panpsychism or dualism, for that matter) would achieve for Russell's blind man what knowing all of physics cannot? I'm not sure that I understood your question here, but there's no such proposition. Idealism is a field of inquiry. It's a set of arguments that eliminate matter as a possible candidate for the basis of reality. Like physics, or any other philosophy, it belongs to conceptual knowledge. It can't give you access to experiential knowing.

mannykannot 2y ago
We should start with the question I posed, as this is the crux of the issue here, and without it, everything else here is moot. I will endeavor to set it out as clearly as I can. As you put great weight on the 'hard problem' being an insurmountable one for (and only for) materialism, I am sure you are well aware of the seminal importance, for that premise, of what has become known as the 'Knowledge Argument' from Frank Jackson's paper "Epiphenomenal Qualia", and in particular, a thought experiment from that paper which goes by several names (such as 'Mary the Neuroscientist'), and which was called, by the philosopher Philip Goff, "the greatest argument against materialism." This argument has several antecedents, including C. D. Broad's argument that chemistry cannot tell us what ammonia smells like, and, as I mentioned in my previous post, Russells aphorism "it is obvious that a man who can see knows things that a blind man cannot know; but a blind man can know the whole of physics." All these arguments are doing essentially the same thing: pumping the intuition that knowing what it is like to see colors (or have any other phenomenal experience) is not something that could ever be learned by studying the physical sciences (I say they pump the intuition because it is not actually an established fact that the premise is correct, but to be clear, I think it is, at least for human consciousness.) There is a certain amount of indirection at work here, in specifying only the physical sciences. We get an equally valid question by substituting other academic disciplines for the physical sciences, and in particular, of course, any philosophy of mind: they do not get a pass on this by being anti-materialist, and certainly any philosophy - such as idealism - which is premised first and foremost on the reality and significance of the hard problem, will have to confront this question (among many others) before it can be regarded as the solution to this problem and as providing an explanation of consciousness. Your reply is apparently that in this respect, idealism is no different than materialism - it will not enable Russell's blind man to know what it is like to see - from which it follows that the knowledge argument cannot be used by idealists against materialism. I am interested in learning, then, what you - and, by extension, idealists - regard as convincing arguments for there being a hard problem for materialism, specifically.
- mekoka 2y ago
  > I say they pump the intuition because it is not actually an established fact that the premise is correct, but to be clear, I think it is, at least for human consciousness. I don't see what's being pumped. As we know from the incompleteness theorem, some truths cannot be proven. The fact of our awareness is another that's often doubted by the same people that doubt the divide separating qualia and conceptual knowing. Has their difficulty to grasp at these intuitions somehow become the burden of those who access them as self-evident? The hard problem is a linchpin. For those who get it, materialism starts to unravel. Those who don't, think those who do are making stuff up, but they also can't give a single example to counter the argument, nor can they conceive for themselves an entirely novel experience purely out of thought. They can't imagine a new color, think a new taste, conceive of a new sense. > Your reply is apparently that in this respect, idealism is no different than materialism - it will not enable Russell's blind man to know what it is like to see - from which it follows that the knowledge argument cannot be used by idealists against materialism. As I said, idealism is only a philosophy. It's mostly a process of elimination resting on conjectures such as the hard problem. As possibilities are removed, remaining candidates hint at the likeliest direction, but it's indeed not a final realization. There are some metaphysical speculations resting atop the foundations that reality is mind first. But I'm personally much less invested in speculations. I find the challenge of pulling our cultural head out of the sand of implausibility more of a concern. Depending how curious (and open-minded) you are about "knowledge" that get the "blind man to know what it is like to see", I'd suggest to look into practices that have this as their main goal. They're about engaging consciousness directly with immediate experience (the senses) and existential curiosity (I am aware that I am, but what am I?) to cultivate the seed of an eventual realization. They're known under the umbrella term "nonduality". As an introduction, I suggest this selection of texts spanning multiple nondual traditions aggregated and read by a Buddhist nun https://www.youtube.com/@SamaneriJayasara https://www.youtube.com/@SamaneriJayasara.