Consilience

Epistemological Realism vs. Epistemological Idealism

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"Epistemological realism is a philosophical position, a subcategory of objectivism, holding that what you know about an object exists independently of your mind. It opposes epistemological idealism.

Epistemological realism is related directly to the correspondence theory of truth, which claims that the world exists independently and innately to our perceptions of it. Our sensory data then reflect or correspond to the innate world."

- Wiki

Epistemological Idealism is in line with what this community's approach to epistemology is. At least, that's what I'm assuming. 


Hadn't heard of this until tonight and felt like giving my armchair philosophy rant. What frustrates me about this perspective is that it very clearly is institutionally taken on by mainstream science and philosophy. I recall asking my philosophy of mind professor back in university what the academic philosophy's viewpoints where on materialism vs. idealism vs. dualism and he said the overwhelming majority of philosophers were materialist, which if the case, would mean their views on epistemology would correspond to this form of epistemology. But see their is a huge problem with this viewpoint. This form of epistemology requires the fact of an objective, material world to even work, even though a material world is already assumed within the arguments of this epistemology. The entire argument is circular, each stance relying on the other being an axiom. In other words, in order for epistemological realism to be a "correct" epistemology, it would require materialism as a starting point (axiom) and then vice versa. Moreover, it completely dismisses the subjectivity of our conscious experience. There is no such thing as "independent of your mind" unless one is referring to a state of no-mind, in which case there is no such thing as "independent of conscious experience." 

 

I don't see how it's possible to deny subjective conscious experience and I don't see how all of these high level thinkers don't how irrational this supposedly rational metaphysics is.nHow is it that the majority of academics don't see that all of our experience, OBJECTIVELY, *is* conscious experience? The 5 bodily senses and our minds all are various forms of consciousness... Yet because brain states correlate so consistently with conscious experiences they make the metaphysical assumption that consciousness is simply the brain, and that there exists an object-ive physical world. However, WHY does everyone miss the fact that this is, in the strictest, and even most rational sense (which is what these type of mind's tend to cling to), an assumption, an axiom, a metaphysical starting point taken on by faith? Where is the attachment to materialism coming from? Why so many great minds of humanity clinging to this philosophical assumption? 

Edited by Consilience

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Hey I feel you. I'd like to recommend a YouTube playlist that delves on all of these points, including "self actualization" "idealism" and "philosophical positions". 

It's called "Solipsism Series" by the user "Meta Sage".

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To admit idealism is to admit that reality could all just be imaginary. What serious intellectual wants to do that? The whole appeal of being an intellectual is to take one's mind seriously.

So it's a problem of the fox guarding the hen house.

An academic cannot admit idealism because that then leads to mysticism and that then leads to the end of his career.

People who discover mysticism either leave academia or don't enter it in the first place.


You are God. You are Truth. You are Love. You are Infinity.

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5 hours ago, Jakeem Ortiz said:

Hey I feel you. I'd like to recommend a YouTube playlist that delves on all of these points, including "self actualization" "idealism" and "philosophical positions". 

It's called "Solipsism Series" by the user "Meta Sage".

Thanks for that! 


Don’t you realize that all of you together are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God lives in you?
1 Corinthians 3:16

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7 hours ago, Consilience said:

"Epistemological realism is a philosophical position, a subcategory of objectivism, holding that what you know about an object exists independently of your mind. It opposes epistemological idealism.

Epistemological realism is related directly to the correspondence theory of truth, which claims that the world exists independently and innately to our perceptions of it. Our sensory data then reflect or correspond to the innate world."

- Wiki

Epistemological Idealism is in line with what this community's approach to epistemology is. At least, that's what I'm assuming. 


Hadn't heard of this until tonight and felt like giving my armchair philosophy rant. What frustrates me about this perspective is that it very clearly is institutionally taken on by mainstream science and philosophy. I recall asking my philosophy of mind professor back in university what the academic philosophy's viewpoints where on materialism vs. idealism vs. dualism and he said the overwhelming majority of philosophers were materialist, which if the case, would mean their views on epistemology would correspond to this form of epistemology. But see their is a huge problem with this viewpoint. This form of epistemology requires the fact of an objective, material world to even work, even though a material world is already assumed within the arguments of this epistemology. The entire argument is circular, each stance relying on the other being an axiom. In other words, in order for epistemological realism to be a "correct" epistemology, it would require materialism as a starting point (axiom) and then vice versa. Moreover, it completely dismisses the subjectivity of our conscious experience. There is no such thing as "independent of your mind" unless one is referring to a state of no-mind, in which case there is no such thing as "independent of conscious experience." 

 

I don't see how it's possible to deny subjective conscious experience and I don't see how all of these high level thinkers don't how irrational this supposedly rational metaphysics is.nHow is it that the majority of academics don't see that all of our experience, OBJECTIVELY, *is* conscious experience? The 5 bodily senses and our minds all are various forms of consciousness... Yet because brain states correlate so consistently with conscious experiences they make the metaphysical assumption that consciousness is simply the brain, and that there exists an object-ive physical world. However, WHY does everyone miss the fact that this is, in the strictest, and even most rational sense (which is what these type of mind's tend to cling to), an assumption, an axiom, a metaphysical starting point taken on by faith? Where is the attachment to materialism coming from? Why so many great minds of humanity clinging to this philosophical assumption? 

Why do you think believing in idealism is more rational than believing in naive realism?

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48 minutes ago, Scholar said:

Why do you think believing in idealism is more rational than believing in naive realism?

One case you could make is appealing to Occam's Razor maxim. 

Though I personally think idealism should ultimately be accepted from a position of higher consciousness and not on any reliance upon logical systems of explanation.

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15 minutes ago, Jakeem Ortiz said:

One case you could make is appealing to Occam's Razor maxim. 

Though I personally think idealism should ultimately be accepted from a position of higher consciousness and not on any reliance upon logical systems of explanation.

Can you demonstrate how Occam's Razor is useful in this case, and how it leads us to assume Idealism to be more likely?

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@Consilience

1.  What good would the illusion be if it was easy to see through.  It wouldn't be much of an illusion.  God is a master.   Physical reality feels sooo real and juicy.  It is very hard to detect it is a dream without a spiritual awakening and doing consciousness work.  It is so counterintuitive.   And for this to even happen you have to get past point 2 below.

2.  Culture.  Materialism is ingrained into our culture.  It effectively is our culture.   Most would never even doubt it unless they had an awakening.

3. Radical open mindedness - enough said there.

This is why so few are enlightened to Truth.

 

 

Edited by Inliytened1

 

Wisdom.  Truth.  Love.

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@Scholar I don’t believe in idealism. I observe the actuality of direct experience, and this observation can then be conceptualized as idealism. Idealism as a theory is still not it. 

 

@Jakeem Ortiz Thanks I’ll definitely check it out :)

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@Consilience What you know about the object is the object. There’s nothing more to it. 

If you’re walking on the desert and see a snake, the snake is real. Until, on closer inspection, you realise that the snake was in fact a rope, in that moment, the snake becomes a rope. The rope only came into existence when you thought of it.


"Not believing your own thoughts, you’re free from the primal desire: the thought that reality should be different than it is. You realise the wordless, the unthinkable. You understand that any mystery is only what you yourself have created. In fact, there’s no mystery. Everything is as clear as day. It’s simple, because there really isn’t anything. There’s only the story appearing now. And not even that.” — Byron Katie

 

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6 minutes ago, Consilience said:

@Scholar I don’t believe in idealism. I observe the actuality of direct experience, and this observation can then be conceptualized as idealism. Idealism as a theory is still not it.

Then why do you have a problem with Naive Realism?

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@Scholar Because philosophers, whether they’re aware of it or not, hold it as true even though naive realism is a metaphysical belief with axioms that have to be taken on as faith in order to work, which is contradictory to the rationality they further hold as being the end all be all tool for truth seeking. Moreover, naive realism when examined from the most objective point of view (actual direct experience) is an untenable stance, but this is not acknowledged. Does that make sense? 

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2 minutes ago, Consilience said:

@Scholar Because philosophers, whether they’re aware of it or not, hold it as true even though naive realism is a metaphysical belief with axioms that have to be taken on as faith in order to work, which is contradictory to the rationality they further hold as being the end all be all tool for truth seeking. Moreover, naive realism when examined from the most objective point of view (actual direct experience) is an untenable stance, but this is not acknowledged. Does that make sense? 

First we need to establish which axioms have to be taken on faith contrary to the position of idealism (or from a position that talks about directness of experience and so forth). Does idealism possibly require it's own axioms to be held?

Where exactly is the contradiction between naive realism and the tools of rationality?

Why is actual direct experience the most objective point of view, and how does it falsify naive realism?

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Don’t you realize that all of you together are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God lives in you?
1 Corinthians 3:16

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@Scholar

3 hours ago, Scholar said:

Can you demonstrate how Occam's Razor is useful in this case, and how it leads us to assume Idealism to be more likely?

One could certainly make the observation that what is definitely the case regardless of anything else, is that there is this present direct experience. 

Now, if we try to explain the underlying nature of this direct experience, we compare 2 prominent possible answers

1. Materialism

2. Idealism

Going off of Occam's Razor alone, we can make the case for Idealism being the more viable perspective. Why?

Let's review the basics of OR, it basically states that all things being equal, the simplest explanation (the one that admits the fewest parts) is to be preferred.

Materialism basically posits an entire extra realm of the noumena that by definition cannot even be directly perceived, in order to explain our direct experience. Whereas Idealism simply has direct experience and does not posit any other additional entities to explain the same phenomenon. Idealism then has fewer parts and is the simpler of the two cases. Thus by OR standards, idealism is to be preferred over materialism.

The way materialists get around this however is through a feat of mental gymnastics. They reason that the positing of extra entities is justified if they can carry sufficient explanatory power that they perceive the opposite viewpoint as lacking. Extra entities can sort of buy immunity from OR if they can provide explanations for things that the other perspective has as of yet been unable to provide explanations for on the same level. A materialists will be happy to point out to you the successes of Science which has as a supposition, the unsupported claim of an external material world. Then they flip the script and take materialism as the given and call idealism the new unsupported claim. 

Even though idealism is actually the given, which needs no support empirical, rational or otherwise because it is pure being, prior to all conceptualization and thus as simple as you can get. All that remains is to be directly conscious of this fact, which is why I advise against ultimately relying on rational or logical or scientific forms of evidence for idealism and instead invite you to simply be conscious of this truth that is already the case and self-evidently so.

 

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37 minutes ago, abrakamowse said:

 

I know the video abrakamowse, but I think it is far from an indepth philosophical analysis of naive-realism. If you were to show this to a philosopher who does not reject Naive Realism it will hardly convince them of the opposite.

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Just now, Jakeem Ortiz said:

@Scholar

One could certainly make the observation that what is definitely the case regardless of anything else, is that there is this present direct experience. 

Now, if we try to explain the underlying nature of this direct experience, we compare 2 prominent possible answers

1. Materialism

2. Idealism

Going off of Occam's Razor alone, we can make the case for Idealism being the more viable perspective. Why?

Let's review the basics of OR, it basically states that all things being equal, the simplest explanation (the one that admits the fewest parts) is to be preferred.

Materialism basically posits an entire extra realm of the noumena that by definition cannot even be directly perceived, in order to explain our direct experience. Whereas Idealism simply has direct experience and does not posit any other additional entities to explain the same phenomenon. Idealism then has fewer parts and is the simpler of the two cases. Thus by OR standards, idealism is to be preferred over materialism.

The way materialists get around this however is through a feat of mental gymnastics. They reason that the positing of extra entities is justified if they can carry sufficient explanatory power that they perceive the opposite viewpoint as lacking. Extra entities can sort of buy immunity from OR if they can provide explanations for things that the other perspective has as of yet been unable to provide explanations for on the same level. A materialists will be happy to point out to you the successes of Science which has as a supposition, the unsupported claim of an external material world. Then they flip the script and take materialism as the given and call idealism the new unsupported claim. 

Even though idealism is actually the given, which needs no support empirical, rational or otherwise because it is pure being, prior to all conceptualization and thus as simple as you can get. All that remains is to be directly conscious of this fact, which is why I advise against ultimately relying on rational or logical or scientific forms of evidence for idealism and instead invite you to simply be conscious of this truth that is already the case and self-evidently so.

 

Firsty, the problem is that you are already framing it in a way that is unsubstantiated. You already claim that "What is" is experience, not "world". Why is "What is" not direct world? Where does the whole experience framework come from, how is it evident that anything is experience? It is what is there, how come you are able to make claims about what that which is there is?

Secondly, why is occam's razor relevant in this? Why is it a good tool for establishing the existential nature of reality? Occam's Razor, after all, is a rule that was established from empirical data based on a materialistic framework of reality. We are operating far prior to that, far before we can even get to establish whether occam's razor is a valid way of establishing truth. After all, occam's razor is not some sort of divine rule, it is simply a principle that seems to be useful in investigating the likelihood of something to be true or not. We are talking about something that goes far prior to the phenomena of the world in which this principle was established in.

If we go by this standard, then ultimate solipsism is what you should believe in, completely devoid of any framework whatsoever. After all, by claiming that there is direct experience rather than simply what is, you are adding parts to your theory.

 

How do you substantiate that there is such a thing as science or materialists if by OC it is more likely that it is all simply what is, a groundless dream? And how do you substantiate the existence of OC, when once it is out of direct experience it cease to exist, because after all there is nothing outside of direct experience? Just not thinking about OC means it doesn't exist, therefore it could not possibly be a principle to follow. Infact, any principle you will establish will only exist and be valid as long as it is an object in experience, as it could not exist anywhere outside of it.

How do you get passed these issues?

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