Omg yusss Bernardo Kastrup on Alex O'Connor

[Carl-Richard]

My repeated spamming in the comments seemed to help finally:

 

[zurew]

He should have spent a little bit more time on laying down epistemic norms, becuase people in the comments are really confused about what set of norms they should use to judge these metaphysical debates.

And the obvious answer is that its abductive - you are looking for the inference to the best explanation (so its based on theoretical virtues).

 

If you dont start with that, then this is what you have  - people confused asf fuck not having any basic toolset how to make sense of and how to evaluate different metaphysical theses.

 

I guess this is not necessarily his problem, but an unprepared audience problem.

Edited yesterday at 12:46 AM by zurew

[Leo Gura]

Has Alex found God yet?

Lol

[zurew]

He is more and more sympathetic towards idealism.

He said "Im pretty convinced that materialism characterized here is quite ludicrious"

[Jannes]

29 minutes ago, zurew said:

He is more and more sympathetic towards idealism.

He said "Im pretty convinced that materialism characterized here is quite ludicrious"

Well his doctor in philosophy was literally about defending idealism, seems hard to get even more sympathetic then that. 

My point is just that with this in mind, maybe his positions doesnt seem like progress anymore but more like a position he already held. 

[Carl-Richard]

33 minutes ago, Jannes said:

Well his doctor in philosophy was literally about defending idealism, seems hard to get even more sympathetic then that. 

My point is just that with this in mind, maybe his positions doesnt seem like progress anymore but more like a position he already held. 

He is talking about Alex.

[Natasha Tori Maru]

Oh sweet, appreciate the share! 

[Jodistrict]

The thing to keep in mind is that idealism does not deny science.   Materialism and idealism are different philosophical points of view.

Think of seeing an object and labeling it a “tree”.  Treating it as a stable object is a convenient fiction.  According to science, what we label as “tree” is just a flurry of activity, that is molecules moving against each other.    Our seeing a tree is not true, it is useful.  It helps the body navigate the world.  Our intelligence has evolved for the purpose of survival, not truth.  In the same sense, science comes up with objective theories.  I can build a smartphone that does useful things based on these theories.  But, that does not mean the theories are truth with a capital T.     

From my understanding the core of Bernardo’s argument is that materialism is incomplete in that it can’t explain qualia.   If materialism is true, that means that which we consider most real – our personal experience is just an epiphenomenon.  We are just another type of matter and our consciousness has no inherent reality in itself but is an accidental consequence of evolution in a material universe.   So from that perspective, the difference between materialism and idealism is huge.  If you reflect on your awareness, you should see the problem – from your subjective point of reference, your experience is the most intimate provable reality – and the material world is phenomena in your consciousness.  The materialists shrug that off and say it isn’t even worth thinking about. 

[Natasha Tori Maru]

My gosh, the comments section... 

 

[Carl-Richard]

2 hours ago, Natasha Tori Maru said:

My gosh, the comments section... 

Worse than a solipsism discussion though? The confusion is really the same.

Edited yesterday at 12:41 PM by Carl-Richard

[Carl-Richard]

11 hours ago, zurew said:

He should have spent a little bit more time on laying down epistemic norms, becuase people in the comments are really confused about what set of norms they should use to judge these metaphysical debates.

And the obvious answer is that its abductive - you are looking for the inference to the best explanation (so its based on theoretical virtues).

If you dont start with that, then this is what you have  - people confused asf fuck not having any basic toolset how to make sense of and how to evaluate different metaphysical theses.

I guess this is not necessarily his problem, but an unprepared audience problem.

Maybe, but starting out on a dry "here are my five meta-metaphysical criteria for what makes a good metaphysical theory" would probably make people tune out before it has even begun.

I think Bernardo made a genius choice for his first big podcast. He has always been quite reluctant about going on for example Rogan or Lex Fridman. The thing about Alex other than that he is able to play ball, is he tends to argue for positions like "this sounds really ridiculous on the surface, but if you just think about it, it really makes the most logical sense". He does this with for example emotivism, but really it's a general trait coming from his openmindedness combined with his beautifully pompous philosopher persona.

It makes a perfect ground for Bernardo to lay out his idealism which is after all based in logic and does sound ridiculous on the surface for someone who doesn't know about it. So when he gets a warm opener from someone like Alex, and as he gets a larger following and his views get more digested, he could move on to larger podcasts from there.

Edited yesterday at 12:40 PM by Carl-Richard

[zurew]

48 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

Maybe, but starting out on a dry "here are my five meta-metaphysical criteria for what makes a good metaphysical theory" would probably make people tune out before it has even begun.

You dont need to give an exhaustive rundown what your personal theory is about what makes a good metaphysical theory, you can just give a 4-5 minute rundown about the usually used and mentioned theoretical virtues and then how analytic idealism ranks better given those than physicalism.

 

People are expecting a deductive argument in the comment section, because they are confused, and they think Bernardo makes the claim that physicalism is impossible.

This is why they  bring up stuff like  "but you didnt rule out bro, that we will find an explanation for consciousness in the future bro".

They also bring up science as if that would be responsive to anything said about metaphysics. To be fair, Bernardo made it clear and said explicitly how you can do most of science while being metaphysically agnostic (when it comes to what the world is made out of) and most of the audience still managed to not track that point.

 

I think a good way to cut through the confusion is to ask "what do you think you lose, when you adopt analytic idealism over physicalism". And this is where you will get replies about science, and then you can explain how all of science is compatible with analytic idealism and then you might get heureka moments from some of the incredibly confused commenters.

Edited yesterday at 01:27 PM by zurew

[zurew]

But also fuck the people who think the part about theoretical virtues is dry.

Fuck the appeal to normies, get educated about phllosophy and dont expect that you will understand any of this without doing deep studying.

I hate the general expectation and attitude towards philosophy in general (that is btw never applied in any other context).

 Everyone intuitively knows that you wont be able to understand in depth what any expert says about any domain of science without studying the subject first, so why have that expectation about philosophy?

[Natasha Tori Maru]

I think Bernardo really attempted to make it clear science is not incompatible with his view. And he spent a bit of time on it. But then he states 'everything is mind' and I do not recall him actually going in depth into what he means there. That would confuse the fuck out of viewers, and cause materialists to dry retch.

So, you end up with a cesspool of tik tok philosophers who think they can even touch on the topic at a surface level. There is a serious lack of thought with the comments. Half of them stand on the wonky stilts with arguments containing more holes that swiss cheese

I expected Alex to push back a bit more.

18 hours ago, zurew said:

Fuck the appeal to normies, get educated about phllosophy and dont expect that you will understand any of this without doing deep studying.

I actually got the vibe this was an appeal to normies.

[Carl-Richard]

19 hours ago, zurew said:

You dont need to give an exhaustive rundown what your personal theory is about what makes a good metaphysical theory, you can just give a 4-5 minute rundown about the usually used and mentioned theoretical virtues and then how analytic idealism ranks better given those than physicalism.

 

People are expecting a deductive argument in the comment section, because they are confused, and they think Bernardo makes the claim that physicalism is impossible.

This is why they  bring up stuff like  "but you didnt rule out bro, that we will find an explanation for consciousness in the future bro".

They also bring up science as if that would be responsive to anything said about metaphysics. To be fair, Bernardo made it clear and said explicitly how you can do most of science while being metaphysically agnostic (when it comes to what the world is made out of) and most of the audience still managed to not track that point.

 

I think a good way to cut through the confusion is to ask "what do you think you lose, when you adopt analytic idealism over physicalism". And this is where you will get replies about science, and then you can explain how all of science is compatible with analytic idealism and then you might get heureka moments from some of the incredibly confused commenters.

Yeah it could've likely been beneficial overall. It's just the Alex style of jumping right into the discussion with a pointed question could also have an effect. It's a good way to get people immediately glued to the discussion. There a pros and cons for different versions of outreach, more eyes vs less eyes but more convinced eyes.

Even if many people are initially lost, just seeing Alex engage with Bernardo in such a fluid and non-polemical way is itself an effective signal that could make them want to go back and dig deeper to get a better understanding. If you get the audience to think it's on them that they don't understand and that both the podcaster (that you like) and guest are exhibiting signals that they both perfectly understand, that inspires humility.

But of course, there is a problem that people think they understand but the people that are talking are misguided. Then your approach could maybe be more beneficial.

Edited 12 hours ago by Carl-Richard

[zurew]

2 hours ago, Natasha Tori Maru said:

And he spent a bit of time on it. But then he states 'everything is mind' and I do not recall him actually going in depth into what he means there. That would confuse the fuck out of viewers, and cause materialists to dry retch.

To be fair to him, I think he also said that nature is mind - he phrased it kind of that way and I think that should clear up some of the confusion, but yeah, the commenters are horny to not engage with what being said.

The funny thing is that those commenters are so fucking confused that they dont understand their own view. 

 

Edited 10 hours ago by zurew

[UnbornTao]

Fun!

[Carl-Richard]

1 hour ago, zurew said:

The funny thing is that those commenters are so fucking confused that they dont understand their own view. 

You can't retard-proof reality 😀