Anti-realism(s)

[Skepdick]

question of will in the Nietzschean sense...

ultimately, "we" create the world in which "we" exist...

are you viewing this as an antirealism? Are we actually in separate worlds?

If you qualify your existence different to me, e.g you qualify your existence as hell and I qualify my existence as heaven, then are we living in the same world?

[Atla]

Let's imagine for a moment that there is no mind independent reality + we think there are many minds (IOW: no solipsism).

I don't even know how to imagine this. There are minds + mind-dependent realities, but are they connected on any level? If yes then how? Can they be connected in some consistent way?

[Flannel Jesus]

Let's imagine for a moment that there is no mind independent reality + we think there are many minds (IOW: no solipsism).

I don't even know how to imagine this. There are minds + mind-dependent realities, but are they connected on any level? If yes then how? Can they be connected in some consistent way?

The same question exactly occurred to me when I was thinking about this.

[Iwannaplato]

Let's imagine for a moment that there is no mind independent reality + we think there are many minds (IOW: no solipsism).

I don't even know how to imagine this. There are minds + mind-dependent realities, but are they connected on any level? If yes then how? Can they be connected in some consistent way?

There't the rub. Or the interesting area, I think.
I suppose I was trying to get VA to mull in that area. First around the issue of other minds, which to me fall into unobservables. We can't observe other people's sensing, say. I see some philosophers have also seen this problem with some anti-realist positions. It may have felt like I was trying to prove him wrong. But actually I think there are likely solutions, but there does need to be some kind of explanation.

Then also the overlaps between people's worlds. He had things when not looked at not existing. In fact the grammar of that sentence is too realist. We leave a room it doesn't exist. (again the very grammar is fairly realist). So what the world like? It's not the pseudorealist rooms appearing and disappearing and paths being spotlighted into existance wherever minds are. But in any case, I tried to push on the amazing consistancy (it seems at least), that we enter spaces and they coalesce out of the quantum soup into rooms with the same objects for people. The same types. Why isn't there much more chaos? I found his explanations lacking.

Again, I didn't mean to trap him, though I suppose that would have been ok. But mainly, hey why is there so much consistancy if there is no underlying reality triggering our experiences and giving them some form while twisted by our minds?

[Atla]

Let's imagine for a moment that there is no mind independent reality + we think there are many minds (IOW: no solipsism).

I don't even know how to imagine this. There are minds + mind-dependent realities, but are they connected on any level? If yes then how? Can they be connected in some consistent way?

There't the rub. Or the interesting area, I think.
I suppose I was trying to get VA to mull in that area. First around the issue of other minds, which to me fall into unobservables. We can't observe other people's sensing, say. I see some philosophers have also seen this problem with some anti-realist positions. It may have felt like I was trying to prove him wrong. But actually I think there are likely solutions, but there does need to be some kind of explanation.

Then also the overlaps between people's worlds. He had things when not looked at not existing. In fact the grammar of that sentence is too realist. We leave a room it doesn't exist. (again the very grammar is fairly realist). So what the world like? It's not the pseudorealist rooms appearing and disappearing and paths being spotlighted into existance wherever minds are. But in any case, I tried to push on the amazing consistancy (it seems at least), that we enter spaces and they coalesce out of the quantum soup into rooms with the same objects for people. The same types. Why isn't there much more chaos? I found his explanations lacking.

Again, I didn't mean to trap him, though I suppose that would have been ok. But mainly, hey why is there so much consistancy if there is no underlying reality triggering our experiences and giving them some form while twisted by our minds?

Yes it looked like the problem went totally over his head. (I mean I think he's actually a solipsist, who doesn't even believe in other minds, but isn't honest enough to admit it.)

But what would be an actual solution?

[Flannel Jesus]

Questions occur to me like, if minds are connected to each other, connected by what? By some substance, or as part of the workings of some system? Does this substance or system have any mind independent reality to it, or is that substance/system that allows the minds to communicate also being created by those very minds? If so... how did it get created in the first place?

Is there a central god-mind governing the operations of this mind-verse? Governing the substances and systems that allow these minds to exist and communicate with each other?

[Atla]

Questions occur to me like, if minds are connected to each other, connected by what? By some substance, or as part of the workings of some system? Does this substance or system have any mind independent reality to it, or is that substance/system that allows the minds to communicate also being created by those very minds? If so... how did it get created in the first place?

Is there a central god-mind governing the operations of this mind-verse? Governing the substances and systems that allow these minds to exist and communicate with each other?

Where it gets even more confusing to me is when we don't posit such a system at all, but say that A's mind-dependent reality and B's mind-dependent reality can overlap for a while. But for those to be able to overlap, the overlapping parts would have to be more or less identical?

[Flannel Jesus]

Questions occur to me like, if minds are connected to each other, connected by what? By some substance, or as part of the workings of some system? Does this substance or system have any mind independent reality to it, or is that substance/system that allows the minds to communicate also being created by those very minds? If so... how did it get created in the first place?

Is there a central god-mind governing the operations of this mind-verse? Governing the substances and systems that allow these minds to exist and communicate with each other?

Where it gets even more confusing to me is when we don't posit such a system at all, but say that A's mind-dependent reality and B's mind-dependent reality can overlap for a while. But for those to be able to overlap, the overlapping parts would have to be more or less identical?

To me, in order to replace realism with something like this, you're already doing the thing you hoped to avoid by rejecting realism in the first place - speculating on things you couldn't possibly know. Except now you're doing it in a much crazier way, because at least realisms speculations are based on experience. Anti realisms speculations are just pure raw wild speculations.

The other thing I intuitively feel is that, by necessity, this type of approach is inherently on the wrong side of Occam's razor compared to realism. My reasoning, which may be flawed, is, let's give a measure of complexity to the idea that this world is real, R. Now, if realism is true, then the implementation of our reality is of complexity R, but if something like this mind network is true, then this mind network has also internally implemented something like our reality inside of it, of complexity R, and then in addition to that you have all the extra unseen complexities of the system of this mind network. So it's necessarily going to be more complex than R, because it includes R.

[Atla]

Questions occur to me like, if minds are connected to each other, connected by what? By some substance, or as part of the workings of some system? Does this substance or system have any mind independent reality to it, or is that substance/system that allows the minds to communicate also being created by those very minds? If so... how did it get created in the first place?

Is there a central god-mind governing the operations of this mind-verse? Governing the substances and systems that allow these minds to exist and communicate with each other?

Where it gets even more confusing to me is when we don't posit such a system at all, but say that A's mind-dependent reality and B's mind-dependent reality can overlap for a while. But for those to be able to overlap, the overlapping parts would have to be more or less identical?

To me, in order to replace realism with something like this, you're already doing the thing you hoped to avoid by rejecting realism in the first place - speculating on things you couldn't possibly know. Except now you're doing it in a much crazier way, because at least realisms speculations are based on experience. Anti realisms speculations are just pure raw wild speculations.

The other thing I intuitively feel is that, by necessity, this type of approach is inherently on the wrong side of Occam's razor compared to realism. My reasoning, which may be flawed, is, let's give a measure of complexity to the idea that this world is real, R. Now, if realism is true, then the implementation of our reality is of complexity R, but if something like this mind network is true, then this mind network has also internally implemented something like our reality inside of it, of complexity R, and then in addition to that you have all the extra unseen complexities of the system of this mind network. So it's necessarily going to be more complex than R, because it includes R.

Fully agree!

[Atla]

Is there a central god-mind governing the operations of this mind-verse? Governing the substances and systems that allow these minds to exist and communicate with each other?

I'm a realist, and the way I used to imagine a "central god-mind", is that it's a higher dimensional structure, with some sort of emergent consciousness that is far beyond human conception. And part of this higher-dimensional structure are lower dimensional minds, sort of outlets/extensions/cells into different lower dimensional realities, and one of those outlets is my mind. It's like a big higher-dimensional amoeba with tubelike outlets/extensions/cells. But the outlets, the lower minds in my picture, probably don't communicate with each other.

In which case, does it go on forever? Is this higher dimensional consciousness also just a part, an outlet of some even higher dimensional, even bigger consciousness? I think I rejected this line of thinking, partly because it leads to an infinite regress, partly because even if we allow consciousness to go up to infinity, why is existence centered on me, this relatively simple consciousness, and not centered on the infinite consciousness? (But maybe it IS centered on the infinite consciousness, I simply can't see it.)

[Atla]

I think Planck and Schrödinger were big on some universal consciousness idea:

"All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force which brings the particle of an atom to vibration and holds this most minute solar system of the atom together. We must assume behind this force is the existence of a conscious and intelligent Mind. This Mind is the matrix of all matter." - Planck

"The personal self equals the omnipresent, all-comprehending eternal self... There is only one thing, and even in that what seems to be a plurality is merely a series of different personality aspects of this one thing, produced by a deception." - Schrödinger

And almost every other founder of QM was also into some other version of consciousness-dependence in QM. Still, even though I'm a nondualist I still do claim that some founders of QM read too much Vedanta. They may have been reading too much into it.

[Iwannaplato]

Questions occur to me like, if minds are connected to each other, connected by what? By some substance, or as part of the workings of some system? Does this substance or system have any mind independent reality to it, or is that substance/system that allows the minds to communicate also being created by those very minds? If so... how did it get created in the first place?

Is separation the default or connection?
I think we often look at alternative ways of thinking/envisioning things through the models that make the alternatives seems wrong (or less parsimonious).

Is there a central god-mind governing the operations of this mind-verse? Governing the substances and systems that allow these minds to exist and communicate with each other?

Or there's something connecting while also have some separation.

[Impenitent]

question of will in the Nietzschean sense...

ultimately, "we" create the world in which "we" exist...

are you viewing this as an antirealism? Are we actually in separate worlds?

your perceptions are unique to you, as are mine to me...

language may allow us to describe them, albeit incompletely, to share them in a sense- but you will never see what I see as I see it through my eyes; nor I, you and yours...

I suppose it depends on your definition of world...

if you limit your world to that which is experienced- they must be separate... if the world is the arena of "shared" potential experiences, not as much...

-Imp

[Iwannaplato]

question of will in the Nietzschean sense...

ultimately, "we" create the world in which "we" exist...

are you viewing this as an antirealism? Are we actually in separate worlds?

your perceptions are unique to you, as are mine to me...

language may allow us to describe them, albeit incompletely, to share them in a sense- but you will never see what I see as I see it through my eyes; nor I, you and yours...

I suppose it depends on your definition of world...

if you limit your world to that which is experienced- they must be separate... if the world is the arena of "shared" potential experiences, not as much...

-Imp

Are we having different but to some degree similar perceptions of the same things?
Or are we in our own little bubbles?
Do we actually experience each other (at all)?
Is it more like a bunch of separate little solipsisms?
Is there one reality that initiates experiences? or are there many?
Why would we describe so much of the world so similarly?
Like the whole entering a room thing.
I don't check out a friend's apartment for the first time the day after my wife did and for me it had four rooms and for her three, with Indian based color schemes and no chairs but rather floor sitting for her and for me Scandanavian style furniture and so on. Shower in what she saw, Bath in the apartment I saw.
Of course we remember things differently and both have fallible memories, but in general our lists of things found are generally very similar and there's no consistant randomness. I think we could consider them miraculously similar, if it all was just random.
So, where does this similarity come from. (and my wife and I are from different cultures, yet even so and despite our cranky natures, we generally find the same things in spaces and have from when we met.)

[Impenitent]

are you viewing this as an antirealism? Are we actually in separate worlds?

your perceptions are unique to you, as are mine to me...

language may allow us to describe them, albeit incompletely, to share them in a sense- but you will never see what I see as I see it through my eyes; nor I, you and yours...

I suppose it depends on your definition of world...

if you limit your world to that which is experienced- they must be separate... if the world is the arena of "shared" potential experiences, not as much...

-Imp

Are we having different but to some degree similar perceptions of the same things?
Or are we in our own little bubbles?
Do we actually experience each other (at all)?
Is it more like a bunch of separate little solipsisms?
Is there one reality that initiates experiences? or are there many?
Why would we describe so much of the world so similarly?
Like the whole entering a room thing.
I don't check out a friend's apartment for the first time the day after my wife did and for me it had four rooms and for her three, with Indian based color schemes and no chairs but rather floor sitting for her and for me Scandanavian style furniture and so on. Shower in what she saw, Bath in the apartment I saw.
Of course we remember things differently and both have fallible memories, but in general our lists of things found are generally very similar and there's no consistant randomness. I think we could consider them miraculously similar, if it all was just random.
So, where does this similarity come from. (and my wife and I are from different cultures, yet even so and despite our cranky natures, we generally find the same things in spaces and have from when we met.)

I am an individual- and I willingly make the assumption that others are as well

the canvases from which we observe may or may not be different- that sensation cannot be strictly shared; just as the canvases on which we paint are uniquely ours...

most of us live as if we share the space; however, many do not or can not...

attributing fault seems futile and we continue to play the game...

-Imp