Mod+ 248. BERNARDO KASTRUP SAYS MATERIALISM IS BALONEY

I started explaining my own view earlier in the thread, but perhaps not explicitly enough.

I am a dualist who thinks that there are 'substances' (=enduring entities) of (at least) two kinds: mental and physical.
Only the mental entities are conscious. The physical entities are insensate.
But they are not of equal standing.
Rather, the mental substances are continually causing the physical substances to exist. And the physical substances are continually constraining the ways in which that first causing can operate. "Mental generates physical, and physical selects modes of mental causation". The 'generating' and 'selecting' give interactions between mind and body, but not symmetrically. Rather, since all causes from from the mental, it is dominant.
The substance of mental things is not specifically consciousness, but love and intention. They are what keep us to be enduring entities.

I happen to believe that there is something beyond either that created mental things. The mental things then create the physical as described above. So maybe many more than two kinds of substances.

Okay: that's somewhat clearer to me. It seems to go like this:

Ultimate cause=>possible string of causes culminating in=>mental things=>physical things.

Added to that,you say: Mental generates physical, and physical selects modes of mental causation, which I don't quite get yet: could you perhaps give an example to clarify?

Also, is the body a physical thing? If so, how do you interpret the meaning of the brain?
 
Okay: that's somewhat clearer to me. It seems to go like this:

Ultimate cause=>possible string of causes culminating in=>mental things=>physical things.

Added to that,you say: Mental generates physical, and physical selects modes of mental causation, which I don't quite get yet: could you perhaps give an example to clarify?

Also, is the body a physical thing? If so, how do you interpret the meaning of the brain?
Yes: that is the general overall scheme of things.

Examples of generation and selection are in my chapter Derivative Dispositions and Multiple Generative Levels:
  • potential energy field: the disposition to generate a force, and
  • force: the disposition to accelerate a mass, and
  • acceleration: the final result.
In the structure of quantum physics as it is practised, and we may observe derivative dispositions in operation:
  • Hamiltonian operator: the fixed disposition to generate the wave function by evolving it in time,
  • wave function: the probabilistic disposition (a `propensity wave') for selecting measurement outcomes, and
  • measurement outcome: the final result.
The body is a physical thing, as is the brain. Organic assemblies of physical parts.
 
Yes: that is the general overall scheme of things.

Examples of generation and selection are in my chapter Derivative Dispositions and Multiple Generative Levels:
  • potential energy field: the disposition to generate a force, and
  • force: the disposition to accelerate a mass, and
  • acceleration: the final result.
In the structure of quantum physics as it is practised, and we may observe derivative dispositions in operation:
  • Hamiltonian operator: the fixed disposition to generate the wave function by evolving it in time,
  • wave function: the probabilistic disposition (a `propensity wave') for selecting measurement outcomes, and
  • measurement outcome: the final result.
The body is a physical thing, as is the brain. Organic assemblies of physical parts.

I didn't know you had a web site, Ian. I can see that I'm going to have to read that chapter before I can say much more, but in the meantime, if the body is physical and the brain is physical, does the brain as you see it have any relation with the mental? If so, what, and how does that relationship work itself out?
 
I didn't know you had a web site, Ian. I can see that I'm going to have to read that chapter before I can say much more, but in the meantime, if the body is physical and the brain is physical, does the brain as you see it have any relation with the mental? If so, what, and how does that relationship work out?
A brief summary of the mind-brain relation is that the mind is the set of 'inner' causes to produce physical effects, and the brain is the external set of those results. The mind causes the brain to operate, and structures in the brain constrain the mind to operate in certain ways. There is a kind of interactive dualism, but (as I said earlier) not symmetric. Though the mind is always the cause, the brain can still communicate perceptions to the mind by constraining it to see in specific ways. The brain has specific neural dynamics to do that.

Overall, the brain acts like the 'skin' of the mind (to use a biological metaphor). It keeps all the interior processes in fixed order, and the body (that skin) is what we see when we first see a person. We see the body (skin), but we know that there is mind (flesh) within.
Thus the brain is needed to make minds permanent. Without growing up causally-connected to a body, our minds would not be properly enduring, but would dissipate just like our dreams when we stop thinking them *. We need the physical to grow our minds.

* That is another reason why I disagree with Kastrup's frequent use of dream analogies. He has (I would picture) the flesh of the body but no skin. We would fall apart.
 
A brief summary of the mind-brain relation is that the mind is the set of 'inner' causes to produce physical effects, and the brain is the external set of those results. The mind causes the brain to operate, and structures in the brain constrain the mind to operate in certain ways. There is a kind of interactive dualism, but (as I said earlier) not symmetric. Though the mind is always the cause, the brain can still communicate perceptions to the mind by constraining it to see in specific ways. The brain has specific neural dynamics to do that.

Overall, the brain acts like the 'skin' of the mind (to use a biological metaphor). It keeps all the interior processes in fixed order, and the body (that skin) is what we see when we first see a person. We see the body (skin), but we know that there is mind (flesh) within.
Thus the brain is needed to make minds permanent. Without growing up causally-connected to a body, our minds would not be properly enduring, but would dissipate just like our dreams when we stop thinking them *. We need the physical to grow our minds.

* That is another reason why I disagree with Kastrup's frequent use of dream analogies. He has (I would picture) the flesh of the body but no skin. We would fall apart.

Okay, Ian. I'm going to have to call a temporary halt here because I need to think about this and read your chapter before continuing. That could be tomorrow sometime.
 
Yeah, this is the sort of conversation that interests me more than materialism vs immaterialism.
Yes: there are certainly different consequences from idealism / nondualism / dualism / theism / panpsychism, especially in terms of the causes then operating.
Knowledge of causes and effects are needed both for science, and for everyday life both as we know it and as we might come to discover its spiritual extensions in the future.
 
I agree that if you are only interested in experience, then Kastrup's idealism cannot be refuted.
His idealism is broad enough to describe any possible world:

We can easily imagine an idealism in which (a) everything behaves as made of material particles, (b) everything behaves like gods in a polytheism, (c) everything behaves as in a non-dualism, (d) everything behaves like a soul+body dual processes, or (e) whatever you prefer.

The reason for this flexibility, is the idealism does not give us any idea of causes, only of experiences (as you recognize).
Note how, in the interview, when Alex asked whether 'this' or 'that' were possible in idealism, the answer was always 'yes, no reason why not'!!!

My question now is: what is NOT possible in idealism?
What observation would it take to refute idealism? I suspect: refutation is not possible. As you say "people have a real hard time getting a leg up on Bernardo in an argument."

Since science (physical or spiritual) wants to know causes, what kind of (physical or spiritual) science does his idealism led to?
Anything? Everything? Any possible world you like? I suspect so.

I don't understand what would not be possible under dualism as well. Given the plasticity of consciousness, that under this form of dualism the mental has domain over the material, and the mental has the capacity to create the material- what is an example of something not potentially possible that would be under idealism?
 
Ian, I'm enjoying your comments, but I admit I am having a hard time understanding your own dualist ideas. They are interesting though and I do want to give them more thought, in the meantime..

>Idealism is an ideology.

As it pertains to Bernardo's writings, this statement is much more wrong than right, but your underlying point is an important one.

>It is a bubble that says you can never go outside of.

Since the point of a metaphysics is to explain reality, unless you think you can step outside of reality you cant step outside of any metaphysics, you can just disagree with it.

>It cannot be refuted.

Can one accurately say any philosophy can be be refuted, as in falsified; shown to be absolutely WRONG? Maybe you mean something else? Personally I still struggle with where philosophy and science overlap.


>But: do we have to put ourselves in the idealism bubble? Should we?

Given what I say above, I suggest that what you are really asking here is should we embrace a metaphysics that we then start filtering our experiences through? Even if we do it tentatively, as a working framework. That's an important question. I think for example, being essentially an empiricist and accepting the rest as Mystery is a very sane approach to life. This is what most people do anyway, as you say elsewhere, as de facto dualists. Any metaphysical position you take is in the end an exercise in make-believe. Yet the big questions at 3:00 am won't go away, so we are all on this website. BTW if most people have always naturally been dualists, as I suspect, that alone is an excellent reason to take it seriously.


>An idealist model can never "produce the reality we see"!
It can only ever produce the appearance of the reality that we (naively) think we see.

I think this is a mischaracterization. If you replace the word "see" with "experience" you will see what I mean. minds and Mind have experiences, that's it.
Some of those experiences are shared in a constrained consensus space, (day to day reality, the universe) whose constraints are the laws of physics. Some experiences are completely subjective. No need to postulate anything besides experiences in mind. Or.. Not! :)

>Most public opinion is that we have minds and bodies, and (probably) souls as well. The Mind/Not-Mind distinction is built into everyday life, at least for the people I meet. They all implicitly assume dualism (or some multilevel reality) with causal connections.

Yep I think you right on with this one.

Bob
 
Yes: there are certainly different consequences from idealism / nondualism / dualism / theism / panpsychism, especially in terms of the causes then operating.
Knowledge of causes and effects are needed both for science, and for everyday life both as we know it and as we might come to discover its spiritual extensions in the future.

Isn't that kind of backwards? Science has done quite well discovering away while getting no closer to a definitive metaphysic. And the path to spirit has already been mapped and mapped again. Maybe it is ultimately unsatisfying, but the truth about experience is readily available, right here, right now.
 
I started explaining my own view earlier in the thread, but perhaps not explicitly enough.

I am a dualist who thinks that there are 'substances' (=enduring entities) of (at least) two kinds: mental and physical.
Only the mental entities are conscious. The physical entities are insensate.
But they are not of equal standing.
Rather, the mental substances are continually causing the physical substances to exist. And the physical substances are continually constraining the ways in which that first causing can operate. "Mental generates physical, and physical selects modes of mental causation". The 'generating' and 'selecting' give interactions between mind and body, but not symmetrically. Rather, since all causes from from the mental, it is dominant.
The substance of mental things is not specifically consciousness, but love and intention. They are what keep us to be enduring entities.

I happen to believe that there is something beyond either that created mental things. The mental things then create the physical as described above. So maybe many more than two kinds of substances.

I think this answers my previous question. I should get caught up with the posts before replying.
 
I don't understand what would not be possible under dualism as well. Given the plasticity of consciousness, that under this form of dualism the mental has domain over the material, and the mental has the capacity to create the material- what is an example of something not potentially possible that would be under idealism?
Such questions as you ask remain unanswered until we have a more full picture of the causes of mental things too.

But a simple example of something possible under idealism, but not possible in dualism, would be Thinking Machines. Or brains that produce consciousness. Or brains that talk and converse and do all psychic and philosophical discussions without being conscious at all. Dualism holds that ONLY minds have consciousness, but in idealism anything is possible since, by Kastrup, "science itself is just a study of the patterns and the regularities that we can observe in reality. "
 
Isn't that kind of backwards? Science has done quite well discovering away while getting no closer to a definitive metaphysic. And the path to spirit has already been mapped and mapped again. Maybe it is ultimately unsatisfying, but the truth about experience is readily available, right here, right now.
Are you serious? What science are you talking about that knows the "path to spirit"?
 
Ian, I'm enjoying your comments, but I admit I am having a hard time understanding your own dualist ideas. They are interesting though and I do want to give them more thought, in the meantime..

1 >Idealism is an ideology.

As it pertains to Bernardo's writings, this statement is much more wrong than right, but your underlying point is an important one.

2 >It is a bubble that says you can never go outside of.

Since the point of a metaphysics is to explain reality, unless you think you can step outside of reality you cant step outside of any metaphysics, you can just disagree with it.

3 >It cannot be refuted.

Can one accurately say any philosophy can be be refuted, as in falsified; shown to be absolutely WRONG? Maybe you mean something else? Personally I still struggle with where philosophy and science overlap.


4 >But: do we have to put ourselves in the idealism bubble? Should we?

Given what I say above, I suggest that what you are really asking here is should we embrace a metaphysics that we then start filtering our experiences through? Even if we do it tentatively, as a working framework. That's an important question. I think for example, being essentially an empiricist and accepting the rest as Mystery is a very sane approach to life. This is what most people do anyway, as you say elsewhere, as de facto dualists. Any metaphysical position you take is in the end an exercise in make-believe. Yet the big questions at 3:00 am won't go away, so we are all on this website. BTW if most people have always naturally been dualists, as I suspect, that alone is an excellent reason to take it seriously.


5 >An idealist model can never "produce the reality we see"!
It can only ever produce the appearance of the reality that we (naively) think we see.

I think this is a mischaracterization. If you replace the word "see" with "experience" you will see what I mean. minds and Mind have experiences, that's it.
Some of those experiences are shared in a constrained consensus space, (day to day reality, the universe) whose constraints are the laws of physics. Some experiences are completely subjective. No need to postulate anything besides experiences in mind. Or.. Not! :)

6 >Most public opinion is that we have minds and bodies, and (probably) souls as well. The Mind/Not-Mind distinction is built into everyday life, at least for the people I meet. They all implicitly assume dualism (or some multilevel reality) with causal connections.

Yep I think you right on with this one.

Bob
1. By 'idealism', I refer to the standard philosophy that has been around for centuries, and that Kastrup claims to be mostly following.

2. Stepping outside the bubble. I agree that we cannot step outside all metaphysics! But, effectively, we do that when we consider multiple possible metaphysics. I am in favor of metaphysical pluralism, for that reason.

3. About refutation, I mean that any comprehensive ideology more-or-less insulates itself against refutation. It is not that particular experiments or evidence may be remote or difficult, but that there appears to be an in-principle obstacle to recognize any experiment or evidence as possible refuting.

4. I agree that everyone adopts (consciously or unconsciously) some kind of metaphysics, or collection of pieces of metaphysics, as a working framework. That is precisely why we should be examining them, especially here as you say.

5. I disagree. Our normal experiences are experiences of something. My experience of a table represents an actual table. However, this is broken in idealism.

6. Good.
 
Are you serious? What science are you talking about that knows the "path to spirit"?

I guess I should have started a new paragraph. I don't think science need know anything about a particular metaphysics to go about its business. Science is science. It works equally as well under non-dualism as it does under materialism.

The path to spirit in my opinion has little to do with science, thought, conceptions, ideas. The true path to spirit seems to require that we put all those things down. I like to change the old saying. It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for an intellectual to realize the true nature of reality. Gotta set down them bags.
 
I guess I should have started a new paragraph. I don't think science need know anything about a particular metaphysics to go about its business. Science is science. It works equally as well under non-dualism as it does under materialism.

The path to spirit in my opinion has little to do with science, thought, conceptions, ideas. The true path to spirit seems to require that we put all those things down. I like to change the old saying. It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for an intellectual to realize the true nature of reality. Gotta set down them bags.
I am a scientist by profession: theoretical nuclear physics. So I know the role in science, especially in theory, of assumptions about what exists. VERY IMPORTANT.

Also, I think, science can and should investigate and theorize about minds and mental causes without reductionism.

Putting these 2 together, I do not see a future science so far from spirit as you described.
 
Yup: and I'm in the middle of this ding-dong, but I'm enjoying it so far because the dialogue has been civilised and Ian is a mate of mine. I'd like to see Bernardo weigh in soon too!:)

It really is fascinating stuff. I want to comment, but need to read up on Ian's chapter.
 
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