All matter is a cognitive ‘hallucination,’ even the brain itself

Liquidity is an abstract quality imposed on us by perception. It is not an inherent quality of the atoms or groups of atoms themselves.

I have no idea why you say this. The Earth would be a different place, even without us to experience it, if water were not a liquid.

Are you suggesting that there is no history to the universe without conscious entities to create/discover it?

~~ Paul

Yes, however, we have never once observed this external world is distinct from our subjective phenomenal awareness of it. If you're not at the tree for a while, it has disappeared from your subjective awareness ~ it doesn't exist in your awareness except as a memory.

The question is why is the external world so stable? Why does matter and physics have such consistency, unlike the thoughts and whims in our mind? The answer that you think is that it is because the world must be like how our senses show us. But how can we know that without something to contrast it against? It's easy to believe that something is a certain way when you have only experienced one perspective.

When I return from holiday and my yard is different, then I experience that my yard is distinct from my subjective awareness of it. Otherwise there would be no yard to return to, because it would all disappear as soon as I left home. Something is going on here regarding the term "distinct from" that you and I are interpreting differently.

I don't think any of this has to do with how different the external would might be from my perception of it. We are just talking about whether there is an "external world" that is independent of my consciousness. It may indeed be very different from my experience of it.

~~ Paul

I have no idea why you say this. The Earth would be a different place, even without us to experience it, if water were not a liquid.

You are confusing abstraction with literal reality. Water is not literally a liquid, separate from our experience of it. Separate from our experience of it, water is not literally as experienced. Water is... something unknown, an energy that we can experience as being a certain way in our perceptions.

Are you suggesting that there is no history to the universe without conscious entities to create/discover it?

~~ Paul

Basically. Nothing exists for no reason. Creation just doesn't... happen for no reason. There's no logic to it.

When I return from holiday and my yard is different, then I experience that my yard is distinct from my subjective awareness of it. Otherwise there would be no yard to return to, because it would all disappear as soon as I left home. Something is going on here regarding the term "distinct from" that you and I are interpreting differently.

When you return from your holiday, your yard as experienced is immediately within subjective awareness again ~ your perception of what has changed in your absence. The yard obviously exists beyond your awareness, because physicality is stable. Besides, the trees and everything else are in that yard, so they experience their own existence, whatever that may be. I am not positing Sopipsism, to be clear.

I don't think any of this has to do with how different the external would might be from my perception of it. We are just talking about whether there is an "external world" that is independent of my consciousness. It may indeed be very different from my experience of it.

~~ Paul

There is an external world independent of consciousness ~ but we have no knowledge of what it would ever be, as all we know is within experience, directly and indirectly.

You are confusing abstraction with literal reality. Water is not literally a liquid, separate from our experience of it. Separate from our experience of it, water is not literally as experienced. Water is... something unknown, an energy that we can experience as being a certain way in our perceptions.


Basically. Nothing exists for no reason. Creation just doesn't... happen for no reason. There's no logic to it.

This is like saying that the sky is not literally blue, because color is only an experience and not an attribute of external things. I agree. However, the sky is allowing to pass and reflecting certain wavelengths of light, whether we experience it or not. And water has the chemical properties that we call "liquid," whether we are experiencing it or not.

I see no reason why creation cannot happen for no reason, or possibly was always here and so never created. You can claim that there was no reality until conscious beings experienced it, but that seems somewhat overly human-centric. And I thought we were talking about some sort of external universal consciousness.

~~ Paul

This is like saying that the sky is not literally blue, because color is only an experience and not an attribute of external things. I agree. However, the sky is allowing to pass and reflecting certain wavelengths of light, whether we experience it or not. And water has the chemical properties that we call "liquid," whether we are experiencing it or not.

I see no reason why creation cannot happen for no reason, or possibly was always here and so never created. You can claim that there was no reality until conscious beings experienced it, but that seems somewhat overly human-centric. And I thought we were talking about some sort of external universal consciousness.

~~ Paul

I believe @Valmar 's point is "liquid" is a signifier for a subset of what is observed in experience. We decide that there is usefulness in demarcating observations as different states with different properties.

For the sake of argument, let's temporarily accept the Materialist faith-based claim that something is outside all experience and yet generates experience. If there are no experiencers then this Physicalist universe is just one thing. So while there are collections of particles behaving like liquids, there are no conscious entities to care about the distinction between water and stone.

Regarding the necessity of a Creator to prevent infinite causal regress...that I am unsure of....

This is like saying that the sky is not literally blue, because color is only an experience and not an attribute of external things. I agree. However, the sky is allowing to pass and reflecting certain wavelengths of light, whether we experience it or not. And water has the chemical properties that we call "liquid," whether we are experiencing it or not.

The sky is literally blue only within subjective experience ~ individual and shared. Blue has never been observed to be a literal attribute of external things, because the only blue things we individually know and can agree upon are within experience. We cannot get outside of subjective experience, so it is all we have.

There is no literal external property of water that is "liquid". This state only exists within subjective experience, which has decided that this set of observed attributes is "liquid".

For light, even wavelengths and photons are an abstraction observed only through computer instrumentation. We've never experienced the wavelengths or particles directly ourselves, even though we can logically infer their indirect existence. Same thing for the "liquidity" of water.

I see no reason why creation cannot happen for no reason, or possibly was always here and so never created.

There is no logical reason that creation just... happens. We've never observed things just... popping into existence without cause. Nothing causes itself. Except consciousness.

Reality as a whole, physical and non-physical, has always existed, uncreated. Physical reality had a beginning, as it has a flow of time, so it has a beginning and will have an end.

You can claim that there was no reality until conscious beings experienced it, but that seems somewhat overly human-centric.

Reality is only known because of conscious beings experiencing it ~ it comes into existence through experience, because it is defined by experience. There is no "human-centric" about it. I believe that all biological life is conscious and experiences ~ humans, non-human animals, plants, bacteria, fungi, other life forms we don't know about, etc, etc.

And I thought we were talking about some sort of external universal consciousness.

~~ Paul

There is nothing "external" about a universal consciousness ~ it is logically inclusive of all reality. The conceptualization of it is that all of reality is a metaphorical dream within the universal consciousness, that we are metaphorical thoughts in the "mind" of "God" as it were.

Nevermind that I think that "consciousness" is a little... narrow in definition and scope. "Spirit" feels more expansive definitionally.

I believe @Valmar 's point is "liquid" is a signifier for a subset of what is observed in experience. We decide that there is usefulness in demarcating observations as different states with different properties.

Precisely. We partition the observed world through qualia, language and definition.

For instance: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eskimo_words_for_snow

In the Iñupiaq language of Wales, Alaska, Krupnik documented 70 terms for ice including: utuqaq, ice that lasts year after year; siguliaksraq, a patchwork layer of crystals that form as the sea begins to freeze; and auniq, ice that is filled with holes.

For the sake of argument, let's temporarily accept the Materialist faith-based claim that something is outside all experience and yet generates experience. If there are no experiencers then this Physicalist universe is just one thing. So while there are collections of particles behaving like liquids, there are no conscious entities to care about the distinction between water and stone.

Yep ~ the universe just becomes a blind clockwork machine endlessly turning for... no reason whatsoever. A lifeless universe that just... does nothing. There's no beauty in a blind machine. There's just a cosmic, nihilistic horror of pure emptiness stretching on for infinity. A sort of... agoraphobia to the extreme.

Regarding the necessity of a Creator to prevent infinite causal regress...that I am unsure of....

This only becomes a problem within this incarnate reality, where there is a linear causal chain to everything... on the spiritual planes proper, causality is very much non-linear, so that is nice recipe for madness and confusion. We existences of linear causality cannot comprehend that without feeling massively confused, as I have learned. There's no point trying to understand, because it just cannot make sense from this frame of existence.

IIRC Seth is a Materialist (or rather leans that way),

More or less.  Anil Seth is sufficiently mainstream to have featured several times in BBC radio programming. Rather than have any criticism, I'd simply say I found his views fit among the rather polite and timid output which is where the broadcaster places itself in these topics.

This only becomes a problem within this incarnate reality, where there is a linear causal chain to everything... on the spiritual planes proper, causality is very much non-linear, so that is nice recipe for madness and confusion. We existences of linear causality cannot comprehend that without feeling massively confused, as I have learned. There's no point trying to understand, because it just cannot make sense from this frame of existence.

Can there be causation without linearity, namely the Past-Present-Future division of change?

I don't know if it makes sense to say Time is something outside of Change, as it is Change that suggests a flow of Time in the first place?