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Kastrup quotes Vickers: "This is when the philosopher asks us to take seriously a proposal that goes strongly against established scientific opinion." and then elaborates that scientific advancement is always based on new proposals like the theories of Relativity and Quantum Mechanics.
Certainly these theories were not proposals coming from philosophers, and they didn't go "strongly against established scientific opinion" but rather monumentally expanded on it.

Ashok Zaman 14 December 2020

* And does that not depend on what it assumes about the ontological status of observer and observed?

Ashok Zaman 14 December 2020

James,

While I would agree that *ideally*, "no science agrees with a materialistic world" that is most certainly not the case in practice, it is not the case in terms of the a priori ontological presuppositions involved, nor how it is understood, or taken to represent and mean more widely. It is quite explicitly used to argue that there is nothing more to reality than what it can measure, and those who support this argument are self-satisfied that the matter is settled beyond question; it has become the ascendant worldview. To suggest otherwise is to be in denial.

As you say, at the lowest levels of physics 'matter' becomes insubstantial. Well then, is it not a legitimate question for science, what is it then measuring? And does that not depend on what it assumes ontological status observer and observed? Meaning, that science, and a lot of what you have said and claimed in your posts are *unavoidably* metaphysical, despite the claim that you are anti-metaphysical. When you say "We don't incorporate consciousness into gravitational or electromagnetic equations..." "If science is to inform metaphysics, what it tells us by and large is that consciousness does not play much of a role in how the universe goes about its business", you are already making claims that implicitly involve an ontological distinction, ergo a metaphysical argument. For one, speaking of consciousness as if it were a thing among other things, measurable.

I am not saying this specifically to defend Kastrup's *analytic* idealism, which argues for consciousness as ontological primitive. Taken as a *purely* conceptual framework, along with materialism, of course one can make the argument that it is nonsense, indistinguishable from materialism, and as such inconsequential. But, again, this would be to ignore what is already presupposed in scientific epistemology, and how the very insubstantiality of 'matter' at the lowest levels points, not to nature construed as something 'out there', but to the construal itself.

Ariel Ase 12 December 2020

One of the deep problem of science, or of those who make it, concerns with the unique way of seeing reality. Generally speaking, science is a more homogenous discipline, it is fundamentally empirical and materialistic. All speculation based on a mathematical or physical model to explain reality, if remaining in the theoretical reign, is closer to philosophy than science. Philosophy is more heterogenous discipline. Some says that it is like a pendulum, oscillating between science and the arts. It is more open to new ideas, an open-ending endeavour. It pays the price of being of little progress if some. But this is in appearance, as most of the now a day scientific work are based on previous philosophical statements, thoughts, though not many scientists do realize it. Philosophy is not only about science (philosophy of science), but it is a much larger activity, which includes epistemology, ethics, aesthetic, logic and metaphysics. Science is more conservative in the way of thinking, philosophy is more diverse and sometime radical in the way ideas are conceived. Philosophers are mostly fighting each other to introduce their ideas, by making their cases to be accepted. Having said that, why do scientists bother philosopher’s comments regarding what reality could be? Why can not we see reality from a different perspective? Why being so set-minded in defending a materialist doctrine that has lasted for so long, without giving possibility to other ways of thinking? Although materialism is associated with science, it is one among many other philosophical doctrines, having born in the mind of materialist Greek philosophers, Leucipo, Democritus, and then Epicure. Please, scientists, do not do to philosophers what the religion institutions have done to science during the long periods of human history. Let’s be free of thinking. Let’s allow thinking to flow, to be open.

James Cross 11 December 2020

Ashok,

In some ways, I am not only directly objecting to Kastrup's view but to the view of everyone who thinks that the idea of metaphysics or ontological primitives makes any sense. So again there is no science that agrees with Kastrup. No science that agrees with materialistic view of the world. Both of these views are nonsense and are actually indistinguishable from each other when decomposed. If everything is one thing, then we can call it whatever we like. When we look at the lowest levels in physics, matter becomes more and more insubstantial. When you read Kastrup on his "excitations" that compose the mind at large they are hardly different from the lowest levels of physics.

My blog is called Broad Speculations so I have explored various positions over time. Any description I have of consciousness arising from EM fields or neural circuits is in the context of science and to repeat something I already wrote. These are useful abstractions that provide a common language for discussing relationships and measurements nothing more. They are useful until better ones come along but they are not descriptions of the fundamental reality.

Ashok Zaman 11 December 2020

James,

If anything, upon reading the post of yours that I was responding to, you end up saying something that is hardly an objection to Kastrup's view. Not to put words into Kastrup's mouth, but his distinction that science as a study of *behaviour*, not what it is, was relevant to my point. I never said it is necessarily physicalist, only that its epistemological methodology *currently construed*, entails ontological presuppositions that are, in effect, physicalist. It's only by clearly acknowledging that scientific epistemic practice describes nature's behaviour -- according to its pre-established ontological framework -- that its *limitations* viz. the nature of consciousness, come to light. Such a scheme is fine, but only insofar as we understand that by this what we are doing is decomposing the world/sense-objects into pre-defined, externally imposed, separable and measurable units (*derived* from, not fundamental to nature), then recompose it/them again according to those units, thus rendering the world as if it was something *we made*. A pretty picture.

You may claim to be free of a metaphysical view or presupposition, but your blog clearly asserts that consciousness is produced by (or through) some physical mechanism, and attributes subjective behaviour to the brain, a material object. In effect, the brain attributed with these abilities in the absence of a subject, for the benefit of a subject.

James Cross 10 December 2020

Ashok,

BTW, I thought I was completely clear that I am not a physicalist. If anything, I am anti-metaphysical.

"Science is anti-metaphysical. It doesn’t care about the ultimate nature of what it is observing and measuring. Its models, its particles, forces, and fields, are not models of fundamental reality. They are useful abstractions that provide a common language for discussing relationships and measurements nothing more. They are useful until better ones come along but they are not descriptions of the reality.

Some may object that a sort of anti-metaphysical, pragmatism is a form of metaphysics. Well, perhaps, it is. But, if it is, it is a metaphysics that doesn’t care about the fundamental nature of reality, that maybe considers it a pointless question".

https://broadspeculations.com/2020/04/05/does-science-need-metaphysics/

James Cross 10 December 2020

Actually Kastrup himself doesn't *agree* with you.

I wish there was an edit option.

James Cross 10 December 2020

Ashok,

I'm not sure which position you are trying to take. If science is necessarily physicalist then I can't see how you can ever argue that we can use science to inform a metaphysics that is not physicalist. What's more, given science's success, then how could you argue that it is telling us anything other than physicalism is the more correct metaphysics.

Actually Kastrup himself doesn't argue with you. He has written:

"The popularity of materialism is founded on a confusion: somehow, our culture has come to associate it with science and technology, both of which have been stupendously successful over the past three centuries. But that success isn’t attributable to materialism; it is attributable, instead, to our ability to inquire into, model and then predict nature’s behavior".

https://iai.tv/articles/why-materialism-is-a-dead-end-bernardo-kastrup-auid-1271

So science works quite well but it doesn't actually require a materialist viewpoint.

Ashok Zaman 10 December 2020

Like most physicalists, you want to have your cake and eat it too.

"I'm saying science doesn't require a metaphysical belief"
"Science may require in cases a physicalist methodology because it is about measuring things"

That is not an epistemology that is free of ontological commitments, then. You may claim that it shouldn't be confused with some requirement that it must assume a material foundation to reality, and yet, methodologically and in practice, it is. It's built right into the methods and instruments of measurement, as if there were an independently available observer-space, like a hermetically sealed container of measurable things.

Elizabeth Ann Curran 10 December 2020

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Bravo and thank you. Many of the comments you make above articulate precisely what I, as an amateur philosopher, have struggled to debate with more physicalist, “scientifically minded” acquaintances. In future I shall simply provide them a link to this piece.
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James Cross 10 December 2020

Asok,

A true believer in what? I'm saying science doesn't require a metaphysical belief. Scientists may individually have metaphysical beliefs. Many may be materialists/physicalists but even the notion of some fundamental basis of reality - an ontological primitive - not only isn't required for science, it might even be antithetical to it.

Science may require in cases a physicalist methodology because it is about measuring things but that shouldn't be confused with a requirement that it must assume a material foundation to reality. I think science can function quite well with no assumption about some singular basis of reality that underlies the measurements.

Ashok Zaman 10 December 2020

James,

To bluntly insist that the epistemic *practice* of science doesn't entail a priori ontological presuppositions, is such a stubbornly and laughably flawed position, it can only be held by a blind fanatic. A true believer.

You'll probably construe this statement as being anti-science. It's not.

Molly Allegretti 9 December 2020

James,

The accusations you are making against Kastrup are really distorting what he's saying. I feel like you have some personal animosity to the man.

If anyone is a mere polemicist it would be Vickers.

If someone is going to make claims that are easily refuted by a charitable reading of the above essay I am not sure what to do.

James Cross 9 December 2020

Asok,

You write:

"James, you're still speaking of science as if its epistemological process stands alone, free of prior ontological commitments".

Yes, that's correct.

James Cross 9 December 2020

Gregor,

Okay. So Kastrup says he wants to appeal to science which consists of a body of knowledge developed over the last few hundred years based on experiments and observations that is agreed to by scientists. But does he really? Do you?

No. You both want to seize on something which isn't a part of the body of knowledge and claim the knowledge of science is "not true or reliable".

If it isn't true or reliable, what is about yours or Kastrup's view that makes yours more true or reliable? Cite the evidence.

Kastrup wants to claim there is some crisis in modern science and physics but it is only to make a polemical argument for a metaphysical position. His position has nothing to do with science or a new paradigm. He offers no scientific evidence.

Gregor Flock 9 December 2020

And that...

"the entire history of science demonstrates unambiguously that, if anything, the majority’s opinion is an indicator precisely of what is not true or reliable; for the majority’s view has been consistently contradicted and refuted at each significant advancement in the development of science.
If Vickers’ peculiar and perplexing view of how legitimate science should be done had been adopted early on, science would have been in stasis since the late 16th century. For no significant advancements since then have come about without an overturning of the majority’s opinion. Vickers’ repeated appeals to majorities are incomprehensible."

...is game, set and match Kastrup.

To add something from myself: Vickers understanding of Kuhnian revolutions is poor and superficial. If it had been deeper, he would have understood and acknowledged that crises *are already there and understood by revolutionaries' whereas inferior normal scientists - or in Vickers case perhaps rather adherents of the church of normal scientism - are oblivious to them. The/A related passage from Kuhn's "Structure":

"Often a new paradigm emerges, at least in embryo, before a crisis has developed far or been explicitly recognized. Lavoisier’s work provides a case in point. His sealed note was deposited with the French Academy less than a year after the first thorough study of weight relations in the phlogiston theory and before Priestley’s publications had revealed the full extent of the crisis in pneumatic chemistry. Or again, Thomas Young’s first accounts of the wave theory of light appeared at a very early stage of a developing crisis in optics, one that would be almost unnoticeable except that, with no assistance from Young, it had grown to an international scientific scandal within a decade of the time he first wrote." (Kuhn 1970, ch. VIII, 86)

To conclude with another fitting quote from Nassim Taleb (“The Intellectual Yet Idiot,” ch. 6 in his Skin in the Game: Hidden Asymmetries in Daily Life) which also underscores what Kastrup wrote:

"They can’t tell science from scientism — in fact in their image-oriented minds scientism looks more scientific than real science." (Taleb 2018, ch. 6)

That is how pathetic groupthink-driven normal 'philosophers' and 'scientists' and 'philosophers' of 'science' can be, and I think that Vickers just might fall into that category.

Ashok Zaman 9 December 2020

James, you're still speaking of science as if its epistemological process stands alone, free of prior ontological commitments. This is simply not the case. If the question is what does science inform us about metaphysics, then clearly, given a priori commitment to physicalist ontological presuppositions, which are, in fact, baked into the epistemic process of science, then of course one can only expect physicalist conclusions. It is question begging.

While Kastrup mentions that he has scientific colleagues who do not take for granted metaphysical materialism (that is to say, physicalism), it's safe to say that it presents as the most acceptable position for a scientist to hold, as well as the one implicit (and explicit) in pretty much all science communication in the public and cultural domain today. Which is a shame, because it has become a dogma that's the singular most limiting factor in our scientific imagination, and thus scientific understanding.

History is repeating itself.

Molly Allegretti 9 December 2020

James,

The lack of consciousness as part of the fundamental constituents of reality is probably the only thing Physicalists can agree on. It's why the Eliminativists are so difficult to refute, they are simply speaking the truth that Physicalism removes all possibility of human meaning from the world precisely because there's no place for Consciousness in the final accounting of reality. It's fields, energy, matter, forces, and so on.

What science informs us about the role of consciousness is the question is yet to be fully settled. And insofar as it rests on mathematical proofs buttressing its calculations and the need for experimenters to make observations Science would seem to depend a lot on consciousness.

James Cross 8 December 2020

Molly,

Who says physicalism starts with the premise there is no consciousness? It starts with the premise that consciousness, like everything else, is physical. Everything we know about the "physical" will be in consciousness because consciousness is physical. It is not apart from the physical.

Once again it isn't a question of whether consciousness plays a role. It is a question in these essays of what science is telling us. There is nothing in science that indicates an expansive role for consciousness. There isn't idealist line of inquiry in science any more than there is a physicalist line of inquiry. There is just science and science hasn't shown yet a role for consciousness in the physics of the universe. Even if there were or could be an idealist line of inquiry, it hasn't produced any results. Maybe it could produce results at some future time, but it hasn't produced anything yet. So what science informs is no major role for consciousness.

Molly Allegretti 8 December 2020

Apologies I meant "near confirmation" not a definitive confirmation.

Molly Allegretti 8 December 2020

James Cross,

Physicalism starts off with the premise that there is no Consciousness, the one thing we actually know with certainty via our own experience. Idealism - which I am not necessarily advocating - is saying that everything we will know about the "physical" will be in consciousness and thus we can (arguably) conclude there's nothing beyond a leap of faith that said physical is outside any consciousness. Thus it does not require a Something from Nothing miracle. Simple logic should lead us away from metaphysics that violate our fundamental axioms, in the same way we await evidence God can create Ex Nihilo.

That said I think even the Physicalist neuroscientists trying to figure out the Hard Problem would be amazed to hear someone say Physicalism doesn't have something to explain.

Again, Kastrup has pointed out that lines of evidence can favor a metaphysics. If this is the only thing that happens, with no other scientific progress made by a confirmation of Idealism, Panpsychism, or some other metaphysics, this is still an incredibly worthwhile research endeavor. I'd be careful not to distort his words, there are right above the comment section after all.

As such I don't think we can say Consciousness plays no role, as we simply don't know what supports the causal regularities we find in Nature. It's an as yet unanswered question. An Idealist informed line of scientific inquiry might, for example, give us insights to what possibly lies "underneath" quantum mechanics.

James Cross 8 December 2020

Obviously I meant:

One can pick and choose various facts and theories to fit a metaphysics one chooses for other reasons but the facts and theories *cannot* prove the metaphysics true.

James Cross 8 December 2020

Molly and Ashok,

The question is what does science inform us about metaphysics. The answer is overwhelmingly that consciousness plays only a minor or no role since it is not required for any of physics to work and be predictive. Consciousness is not found as essential in any theory whatsoever.

If you want to argue consciousness plays some role in the universe nevertheless, then have at it but don't argue that science requires it or science informs us that it must.

Regarding "no value in knowing what metaphysics might likely be true in the sense of conforming best to scientific evidence", you should be able to see that science cannot answer the question about what metaphysics is likely to be true per Kastrup himself. One can pick and choose various facts and theories to fit a metaphysics one chooses for other reasons but the facts and theories can prove the metaphysics true.

Physicalism doesn't have to explain how the physical can produce consciousness because it would say consciousness is physical. The distinction between consciousness and the physical is illusory in a similar way that idealism argues the physical is mental.

Ashok Zaman 8 December 2020

I agree with Molly, you are too generous to physicalism. James' comment below only serves to illustrate how unexamined, pervasive and entrenched physicalism is; as if it were the self-evident position around which the practice of science must turn. The comment presupposes (and takes for granted) that mind, or consciousness, plays no role in the universe going about its business, to conclude that it doesn't. The epistemic *practice* of science, and its findings, are taken to be operating in distinction from it, as if entirely devoid of prior ontological commitment. Citing examples such as Einstein's relativity and the standard model as if they too are free of speculative assumption and non-empirical imposition.

Holding dogmatically to such ontological prejudices in fact, does place arbitrary limits upon the practice of science and its potential findings.

Molly Allegretti 7 December 2020

Excellent article but I think you are too generous to Physicalism, which has to also explain how the "physical" which has no consciousness can magically - in the pejorative, denial of explanation sense - produce consciousness.

As for James' comment below, I find it bizarre someone would think there's no value in knowing what metaphysics might likely be true in the sense of conforming best to scientific evidence. Surely this would inform future research.

Beyond that even if the only thing we could know was whether science best supports Idealism or Panpsychism this would still be a finding of great value to the public knowledge, far more so than findings from physics that may not ever see applicable use within our children's children's lifetimes.

James Cross 7 December 2020

There is very little in physics or science in general to support either idealism or panpsychism. We don't incorporate consciousness into gravitational or electromagnetic equations, Einstein's relativity, the standard model, or thermodynamics. If science is to inform metaphysics, what it tells us by and large is that consciousness does not play much of a role in how the universe goes about its business. The single niche area where there might be any debate is the one area Kastrup points to - a particular view of quantum mechanics that is held by a relatively small number of physicists. This view, even if it could be proven, would tell us nothing definitive of metaphysical import because by Kastrup's own admission science only informs metaphysics. It would still not answer in a final way whether the apparent physical world is really mental or the apparent mental world is really physical. That ultimately is for the metaphysicians to decide or ultimately for them to stop trying to decide.