Idealism

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All I am really asserting on this point is admitted in your reply: "the idea of the Big Bang". There is no Big Bang for us apart from the one we have an idea of.

I suppose it is coherent to talk about a Big Bang, or any other thing in pre-conscious history, that existed quite apart from whether we or any other organismic consciousness perceived it. I mean, this is the commonsense view. But that view is an abstraction in that we didn't actually perceive it and all we have is our scientifically worked out idea of it. It is in this way at least that I would subscribe to an idealism that says we cannot escape our minds in cognizing the world.



Def. possible: Able to be done; within the power or capacity of someone or something.
Def. conceivable: To form or develop in the mind

These definitions are not uncontrroversial in the context of this discussion. In reply to your points:

1) I am not talking about whether we as humans can conceive of or understand a thing for it to be possible. I suppose, to be more precise, I am talking about whether it is possible for a thing to arise in the world without there first of all being a capacity for it to arise. How did the extent and nature of that capacity come about?

A simplistic anology: if you put water into a container, there is a certain amount of water that can get into that container. That is because the container is a certain size, it has a capacity, a nature. For the water to get into the container there must first of all be water and there must be a certain container. I don't know, I'm trying to work this out. Now I seem to be saying that matter could not have come about on its own but had to be conceived first.

2) As I say, I'm not talking about whether we can conceive it, rather, how a thing can come about at all. Now I seem to want it both ways. On the one hand saying that there is no escape from our minds and on the other that something can be conceived of without our minds being present. I'm getting more muddled.

3) The commonsense view is that consciousness does differ from other material facts. This everyone's experience isn't it, even Dan Dennet's?

I go with something like this view.

One can treat this as a confusion of language. Say the word 'matter' means the conceptual opposite of 'mind'. Matter only means what it means because it doesn't mean mind, and vice versa. To try and account for mind through matter in a materialistic philosophy of consciousness is problematic because you have already said that mind isn't matter in order to give meaning to your materialist starting point. Therefore you will never account for what you think of as mind through material explanation. I would think that explaining matter through mind runs into the same limitation.

We don't actually have to think about this problem and that is the way out of it. Probably there is a similar way out of problematizing how the universe arose out of nothing. How can something come from nothing? They are just words and thoughts, thoughts made of words, words made of thoughts. You cannot reach from one to the other for when you try to their meaning simply collapses as it is dependent upon their polarity, upon their being mutually exclusive. Yet one is dependent on the other for its existence - there is a little bit of one 'in the other' - a bit of a yin-yang situation.

Funny how we should think (abstractly) of the world in terms of mind and matter and that it shows up that way to us (when we do science or philosophy). When we don't think about it, there is no problem - everything is a kind of varied oneness. Philosophy will naturally lead to a more idealist view for the mind or rationality is the starting point. Science with its reliance upon external world of matter will naturally tend toward a more materialist view. But both materialist and idealist starting points cannot ever eliminate the other in their conclusions for the meaning of those conclusions depends upon the existence of that which they want exclude, and so the view they seek to deny persists (in the small print). This is how I understand Derrida.

Thing is, I still think mind is ontologically primary. Not sure if I've tested that view against the language confusion argument properly yet, though.

But there is no reason for the idea of a Big Bang without an actual history, which is the issue. Now, we can just have this exist in a world created 5 minutes ago, but it would be an absurdity. The Big Bang is just an interpretation of history. We can deny historical inference, but that is an absurdity.


History is an abstraction? That's a very significant leap to accept. Why not just swallow that everything before you were born is an abstraction? Why not just say that everything 5 seconds ago could be false, because memory is just an abstraction?

The simple issue is that historical inference is the best account for what is going on. Without a history, every aspect suggesting a past lacks a reason for its existence.


And is capacity different than possibility? The only plausible version where I see this is that it may be logically possible for a house to be created out of cheese, but the current socioeconomic structure will not allow for this to be created.

As for how this came about... that's a question for cognitive science, neuroscience, evolutionary biology, etc. I don't know where you would want to go.


Ok, and for consciousness to exist, there have to be neurological structures in place. The nature of the neurology is to create a particular form of consciousness. This is the best explanation for how human beings have consciousness and appear to be biologically determined.

These neurological structures exist as a result of a huge chain going back to protoplasms in the early earth adapting and being destroyed.


Ok, well, I am not sure I can help your muddling too much. I am trying to push another direction.


Right, and the issue comes in with trying to reconcile that with other facts. The commonsense view is likely substance dualism. The problem is that this view is not very plausible given that it creates a gap-filler substance without any clear connection to the biological mind and it generally has no reason or method of coming into existence.(conception?? birth??? and so on) Idealism, which constructs the world out of ideas, still needs to explain why we perceive a world where materialistic explanation seems so true. Materialism explains this. However, if everything were constructed out of a world of ideas, it would be reasonable to believe that mentalistic explanation would be the most effective form.

I think Dan Dennett doesn't. http://ase.tufts.edu/cogstud/papers/quinqual.htm "So when we look one last time at our original characterization of qualia, as ineffable, intrinsic, private, directly apprehensible properties of experience, we find that there is nothing to fill the bill. In their place are relatively or practically ineffable public properties we can refer to indirectly via reference to our private property-detectors-- private only in the sense of idiosyncratic."

I figured I would respond to you, though, I feel you have not grasped my core points. The reply you made to my last post showed that you indeed do favor having a world-view, but I hope that you can understand that one can have many world-views what is important is that they are logically consistent and live-able.

Yes, but presupposing an agent when you are engaging in reductionism is special pleading. One cannot simply eliminate to the point that they are happy with. Rather, when discussing this question, one reaches a point where one must accept that multiple criteria are equally valid. As such, I prefer a world-view which is more powerful. As such, a person building an epistemology can make as many skeptical arguments as they like, nihilism can always be made logically consistent with itself, but I would put it to you that since you actually have to get up each day, a view that you do not exist or ought to fundamentally doubt the existence of your mind, deny that you have any freedom of action, or meaning or purpose and absolutely no moral worth; ought to single that view out as being not very preferable, if you have other options. As such, I invite you to be especially skeptical of epistemological skepticism.



If you accept that they are all fictions, then you have no need to build upon them, there is no value in the decision to do so. All you would be doing is crafting a castle in the sky which is hardly a basis for an epistemology. If you are unable to establish a level of certainty about anything, not even you mind and your world-view is based on hardened skepticism, then you really no basis for even wanting to build upon a mind, fiction or otherwise. So when I am faced between accepting your world-view and mine, there is nothing gained from accepting yours and a great deal to be given up by rejecting my own. I should think that any person who even wants to be logical would accept a world-view which causes them to be able to even justify acting logically.



That may be the case, if reality is objective. That however, is a pretty gigantic 'if'. Since all we have to do on as a starting point is our own experience of the world, the primary starting point is our perception. One cannot move from that to an objective exterior world through raw induction. So presupposing the reality of the outside world is in essence begging the question. I can accept that you would want to view the world that way and as such I would encourage you to build a world-view structured to allow you to do so. I would contend to you that eleimative materialism, simply cannot give you what you want and as such, if there is another view that is just as consistent, you ought to prefer it to the position you are presently defending.



You, like AG, are still putting the cart before the horse on this and as such don't quite seem to be getting at what Saturn and I are talking about.



Warrant as a concept does not have to be absolute, in fact, even on my own world-view, there is still a large amount of justifiable skepticism. Warrant mainly focuses on the level of 'warrant' one has for believing in their world-view, like expecting the universe to be understandable and intelligible or accepting the reality of the outside world. Warrant is about justifiable knowledge. Rejecting it, as a concept and out of hand removes any ground for having any sort of world-view. You seem to think world-view has nothing to do with warrant, when in fact, all world-view is based on warrant; rejecting my world-view (which you seem to really want to) does not mean you must reject warrant as a concept. I accept my world-view and my epistemology because it is very practical, it entails certain things (accepting the existence of a certain type of God for example, which I accept as both rational and pratical) that you reject because of ideology (your atheism). I would put it to you that you are putting the cart before the horse here.



You cannot have knowledge unless you have some sort of epistemology. Epistemology is simply the study of knowledge and justified belief. Everyone, at some level, has one as part of their world-view. I would contend to you, that as a thinking person, you ought to prefer one that is a) without contradictions and b) powerful.



Sure, you seem to be missing my point. You cannot prove materialism through raw induction and naturalism has epistemological weaknesses, so why would you pick it from among a myriad of choices? Once you understand that question you will be able to make sense of Plantinga's work on the subject.

It is clear you misunderstand what is 'fiction' as in fictionalism.

Take computers as an example. When you say 'Server A sends a file to serve B, really what is happening is just some electromagnetic interactions. 'File' is just a convenient way to describe what happen in the context of IT - a fiction. 'File' is at best a very distorted way to describe the electromagnetic interaction. On the other hand, saying 'sending a file' is much simpler, yet useful in the context. Therefore fictions, and making fictions has value.


Wrong. Solipsism, idealism, dualism all accepts some form of 'reality'. The difference is that the former thinks the subjective mind is all of reality, while the later two think there is something more. Eliminative materialism does not presuppose the existence of 'external' reality because there is no 'internal' reality to contrast with. In this sense it is similar to solipsism, but with the extra assertion that reality behaves in an unconscious (physical) way. Really, IT is the existence of a singular entry that experience that is the big IF.


What do you mean by 'justifiable knowledge'? AFAIK Plantinga defines warrant as the difference between true belief and knowledge so all you have is arguing in circle.



1) Plantinga's EAAN fails and is not an epistemological weaknesses of naturalism,
2) What world view has been corroborated (i.e can explain what explained by science - corroboration is the defeater defeater in falsificationism) and does not contain nonsense / irrelevant assertions?


What you have given up is the inclusion of magic in your world view. Something magically makes everything in your naive world view work.

Mental factionalism is about preserving our vocabulary for terms once eliminative materialism has robbed them of pretty much all essential value. My point with regards to mental fictionalism, is not that it is not logically consistent, it is that it simply does not provide enough warrant. Having arrived down to the bottom of the rabbit hole of nihilism, a mental fictionalist wants to fiat some value into place, despite the fact that they have no reason to. Mental fictionalism, is essentially a giant case of special pleading. Your reply to my post however, did not engage in any substantive way with the criticism I have made, you just explained how we label processes by their properties, which is just obvious but has no obvious link to my point. I would also suggest to you again, that mental fictionalism is not a world-view that recommends itself to you when it is compared to any other, it provides no epistemic merit so why would you embrace it when you have alternatives that do?



Before you simply lambaste me with the word 'wrong' you need to explain why. I did not claim that solipsism does not claim that there is no objective world, nor did I state that idealism claims that either. Dualism is a theory of the mind, so I have no idea why you even included it in a list of world-views; when it is actually just a position within a world-view. There is a great deal of equivocation between what I am saying and what you think I am saying in your first sentence and I suggest that it is neither accurate nor useful. Moving on, eliminative materialism, in it's harder form, when it is applied to cognitive functions, denies the existence of a mind and in it's lighter forms does little to establish one and in neither view gives us any grounds to trust its resulting view of the world. So if you are attempting to build a world-view, it hardly recommends itself as an option. So there is no 'if' on hard eliminative materialism, since there is mind to percieve anything. So if your intention is to use it to build an epistemological position, it is in fact, self-refuting. Redutionist positions are good, if they encourage a degree of specific skepticism as a general theory of knowlege it is no foundation.



Plantinga defines warrant as justified true belief. Justification as a term is often used interchangably with warrant. Plantinga, is one of the few authors who explicitly uses the term warrant, as he wishes to make subtle points about justification also. There being levels of warrant does not mean one is arguing in a circle; rather warrant is the goal of my epistemology. When two concepts are roughly equivilant, I chose the one that confers greater warrant. It seems quite clear to me, that when building a theory of knowlege, an 'epistemology', as a part of your 'world-view', one would chose to affirm a position (assuming a range of choices) that grants more 'warrant' than one that does not. Note that there are three key concepts in the previous sentence. I would suggest to you that one should only abandon a position that confers warrant if there is a significant 'defeater' for it (a defeater being a peice of evidence or logical contradiction that challanges or makes a position untenable).



This sentence does not make sense, as a sentence. Also, I did not mention the EAAN, Plantinga's case against naturalism, is a broad strokes arguement and the EAAN is only part of it. Secondly, you need to say why you think the EAAN fails. Thirdly, the EAAN is certainly not an epistemological weakness of naturalism, rather it is a criticism of naturalism. And finally, Plantinga's entire book, 'Warrant and Proper Function' is his argument against naturalism, the EAAN being only part of it; he makes quite specific and profound objections to positions that do not confer proper funtion.



It depends on what you term as a 'nonsense assertion'. All world-views start with certain assertions. Falsificationism is an epistemology of 'science', not an general epistemology of knowlege: Popper never intended it to be used as the latter. As a theory of science it is very useful, but it is not inductive, all positions that remain are simply not presently falsified, this does not mean that they are true. Popper understood this and resisted attempts to make his position into a general theory of knowege, knowing it could never actually be this. Since, you seem to dislike the need to start from a premesis, something Popper accepted, you should continue into your reading of his work: Specifically, his attack on verficicationism would be interesting to you.

It is you who is putting the horse before the cart. You want to 'build a world view' that confirms your naive view on ethics, inductions... So you construct a fantasy so that IF the fantasy is true, all of those will somehow be guaranteed (whether you call it proper function or warrant or justification).

To begin with, I am not interested in a top down 'world view' or 'epistemology'. I begin with assuming some reality exists, and there is a sufficiently consistent language. Then I question how one create fictions about 'reality'. I get science and falsificationism (I never consider falsicationism as general epistemology. It is your strawman - I am agnostic to general epistemology.) and I unsterstand their limitations. Then I question how 'the mind' interacts with 'the reality', using what we can say from science. I get eliminative materialism and mental fictionalism, which in turn explains the nature of 'science'. So I get a consistent set of pieces of word view. As I said, I don't claim I have a complete of infallible world view, but I don't think there is one world view that explains even this limited part better.




How is mental fictionalism special pleading? It does not commit to ontological existence of an agent, rather, it says the idea of an agent is just a label. How am I not engaging your criticism?




Look back what you are writing. You claimed that eliminiative materialism presupposes external reality which I explain is wrong.


How is that the case if yo uaccept that 'belie' are just labels. Indeed, there is no such thing as 'the senses deceiving the mind' in this case.


That I shall discuss in other threads.


What is the difference? Because Plantinga presupposes his arbitrary proper function as criterion?

More note: much Plantinga's argument against evidentialism is based on the belief in existence of other minds (As he wrote in God and Other Minds). So against an eliminative materialism of mind, his whole argument fail flat.

That would not be an accurate representation of what I have said. It is also something that I have explained, repeatedly, so I am not sure what source you are drawing this from. What I claimed is that when building an epistemology and faced with more-or-less equal competing claims, one should perfer the view that builds allows for greater warrant. Otherwise, you are undermining the value of your effort. It seems to be to be obviously illogical to build an epistemology and favor views that undermine the outcome, much less embrace positions that refute the effort. I have repeatedly argued that it would take a significant defeater to move someone off of this quite logical goal.



I grasp where you are beginning from, what you have not quite recognized is that I have made significant objections to that position. Starting with the assumption that some reality exists but ignoring how you percieve this reality is truly a terrible way to begin. The only way we expereience reality is through our own individual perception of it. One cannot get from this point, to mental fictionalism, because mental fictionalism confers zero warrant. In fact, if you accept mental fictionalism, then you have embraced a massive defeater both for thinking that your primary expereience is objective and also for the view that your facalties are reliable. You can relable things all you like, mental fictionalism does this, but it also robs them of their underlying signficant. As such, proceeding from there, is a self-defeating world-view. Obviously, this does not recommend itself to me in any meaningful way. Further, I would put it to you that it is incompatibe with any logical goal of establishing knowlege. One reasons from his own perception of reality, in fact, it is really all we can be sure exists; a world-view which is specifically incomparible with that one reality, is hardly a world-view at all.



Because mental fictionalism is a blatent attempt to stop a specifically reductionist process.

From your article:
"Suppose you are somewhat persuaded by the arguments for Eliminative Materialism, but are put off by the view itself.... Such a dilemma is typical in metaphysics, especially for those guided by a healthy Quinean methodology for ontological commitment... The fictionalist strategy suggests: take the ontologically suspicious entity, E. Take all sentences, S, which seemingly ontologically commit one to Es. Reinterpret these sentences as sentences that are not ontologically committing. Provide a brief explanation as to why these sentences, S, are useful—and so should still be uttered—but are nonetheless false, if taken merely at face-value."

Firstly, Quinean Naturalism presupposes that the starting point is the exterior world, hence my statement, that when used as an general epistemology, it fails for the same reason as verificationsim (hence why it is dramatically unpopular as a general epistemology). Secondly and to the main point, it is special pleading because it engages in redutionism as a basic methodology and then just tries to save some ontological value by simply preserving the vocabulary. It essentially tries to arrest the reductionist methodology, for no good reason other than one wants to. Which is itself interesting because at this point, if one accepts eliminative materialism, the natural conclusion that follows is that there is no 'one' or 'you' to be persuaded by anything. Hence the greatest stop to these sorts of trains of thought is simply to ask 'who is asking?', and if the answer is 'no one' then generally it is self-refuting and certainly is in this case.



Yes but the body of work you are posting from disagrees with you. Eliminative meterialism draws it's criticisms from places like Quinean Naturalism and other sources but they, due to the way we experience reality, cannot be reached without a mind. Eliminative meterialism however deines that there is a mind. So we have a case of x (eliminative meterialism) needing y (a mind) but x denying y exists. Hence it is self-refuting. Even if one takes the narrowest view of eliminative meterialism, there are still unjustifiable and self-refuting propositions involved. Hence, why eliminative meterialism is mostly just repackaged mental nihlism. It is special pleading because having been lead to nihilism, one just refuses to believe it, hence mental factionalism. But that is not a real appreciation of the profundity of eliminative materialism; Jerry Fodor, Professor of Philosophy at Rutgers University, argued that if eliminative meterialism were successful it would lead to the breakdown of commonsense phychology and that this "would be, beyond comparison, the greatest intellectual catastrophe in the history of our species "



No Plantinga does not just presuppose proper function, he points out, how specific definitions used by others and proposed as alternatives fail. He also points out why his definition works. Proper function is a term used by a great many epistemologys, naturalists or otherwise.



Utterly without merrit. The book 'God and Other Minds' does not presuppose that there are other minds in it's objection against naturalism (not evidentialism). Rather, he argues that one does not necessarily have confidence in the existance of one's own mind on naturalism. I am actually wondering how you managed to interpret this position, in this way, unless you were in the greatest of haste.

Your 'significant objection' is nothing but repeatedly asserting the mystical idealism / dualism. In your won words:


In other words you simply assert without any basis that there must be some magical way to 'experience reality' in order to form fiction / belief about reality.

Think about how your perception model is really like: the sensory organ presents an experience (qualia) and then the entry know as the mind perceives it. Then a belief is formed. What I am arguing is that the whole experience - perception is surplus in belief forming.


Based on what you make such assertion? If belief forming is nothing but physical processes, then the whole facility is as reliable as the law of physics go.



1) Where in my source says Quinean Naturalism is a necessary starting point?
2) I already explained in my computer analogue. Is the use of IT language 'a blatent attempt to stop a specifically reductionist process'? Is the effort 'essentially tries to arrest the reductionist methodology, for no good reason other than one wants to'?


The same refuted cognitive suicide again. There is 'no 'one' to be persuaded' does not mean nothing happens.


Exactly what do you mean by 'a mind'?


And how you managed to interpret his position? He is obviously comparing evidence for god and evidence for existence of minds.

To begin with a world view that presuppose magic is NOT making 'more-or-less equal competing claims' compared with one that doesn't.


I am not putting words in your mouth. What do you mean by 'logical goal of establishing knowlege'?


If one does not suffer form illusion (or DELUSION). I urge you to read Dannett's consciousness explained to see some examples.

Umm. No, I have asserted that the primary method by which we experience anything is through our own primary view of it. Our experience is the properly basic fact; no the external world. I don’t know if it would be wise to dispute this, unless you have some other way of experiencing anything?



The primary only basis I have for anything is my personal experience of my existence. If you wish to deny that, then you would be making the very definition of a self-refuting statement.



See my criticisms of why this does not work, it appears that you do not appear interested in interacting with what I am saying.

It does not, nor did I claim it did. Your article uses Quinean Naturalism as an example of how one gets to eliminative materialism. The article does not state that the conclusions of eliminative materialism are self-evident. All I did way use the same example that your article did.



No, you showed that one can save the language of a thing, but not preserve it’s underlying ontological value. It was a non-sequitur and I explained why.


Irrelevant, most conceptions will work with what I am saying.

It seems that your argument has pretty much been debunked. This was at one point an interesting discussion, now it seems you have just fallen back on sniping and ignoring my position. Have fun binary, I for one will not simply argue further for the sake of it. Unless you have something to add, then I think this is pretty decent time to move on.

Nonsense. What is your 'primary view' like this morning? 5 minutes ago? 1 second ago? 1 nanosecond ago? At this moment? How do you even know they exist? You have no test for it. You just assert they are 'properly basic' and have no further argument. So much for your 'interaction' with my argument.

Well in a very real way, we have observed the Big Bang, even though it happened 13.7 billion years ago. What if our perception of it is what caused it to exist in the first place?

Like I said, there is no other way of experiencing reality. My entire epistemology, your entire epistemology and any consistent epistemology is based off of this fact. You can ignore it, reject it or dismiss it, but you won't logically be able to avoid it. You don't actually have a problem with my argument, you have a problem with acknowledging how you experience reality. As such, since it is all I have to go on, I won't give it up without a significant defeater for it. As to your objection from past memory, that is irrelevant. Memory is a seperate question to experience. I for one will give up my trust in my memory. Only when I have a significant reason to. Even if it can be off slightly and often or if it fills in blanks, this is no reason to embrace eleiminative meterialism and go down the nihilism rabbit hole.