A Conscious Universe

[Pizza]

I will admit that I admire benny's attempt to justify idealism along the lines of what Nietzsche called an "unconquerable distrust of the possibility of self-knowledge," writing that, at least on epistemological grounds, "we should agree with these skeptical anti-realists and knowledge microscopists of today"---I mean his posts are leagues above the so-called idealists who merely attempt to smuggle in their notion of god by conflating consciousness with everything.

I do respect Benny for that.

It's funny to see Nietzsche talking this way about idealism, because I feel much the same way about physicalist thought. We "know" that reality is objectively physical, and that mind is therefore nothing more than a physical process, because. . . our experiences lead us to form ideas along these lines. I'm not sure if I'd say that way of reasoning is circular, or paradoxical.

First I think you're confusing epistemological idealism with metaphysical idealism. "Epistemological idealism is the view that reality can only be known through ideas, that only psychological experience can be apprehended by the mind."
"Metaphysical idealism is an ontological doctrine that holds that reality itself is incorporeal or experiential at its core. Beyond this, idealists disagree on which aspects of the mental are more basic. Platonic idealism affirms that abstractions are more basic to reality than the things we perceive, while subjective idealists and phenomenalists tend to privilege sensory experience over abstract reasoning."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idealism#Definitions

An epistemological idealists can be a physicalist since that's where her ideas take her.

Physicalism is normally formulated as form of metaphysical realism (the view that external reality is independent of minds) but it doesn't need to be. The logical positivists were a type of physicalist and naturalist yet they were non-cognitivists about metaphysics. There has been a history of philosophers who would fit under a physicalist and naturalist umbrella but who if not anti-realist were hostile or indifferent to metaphysical realism in some ways. There are non-physicalists, anti-physicalists, non-naturalists, and supernaturalists who are all metaphysical realists and object to solipsistic idealism.
I just want to point that out. I'm OCD about this topic at times.

Okay, then your previous comment about hot air did in fact represent your feelings about taking either position. This makes more sense, now.

It is my position (obviously) that the default position would be to assume reality is as you experience it, i.e. solipsism. However, since I don't plan to test this position by spending my life masturbating on buses or jumping off buildings, then what's the next-simplest explanation? To me, since I experience reality in terms of ideas, then reality AS a collection of ideas requires the fewest additional constructs.

I don't think Occam's razor works in cases like this when the probabilities you are going to get are very low. Really all a metaphysical realist would do is just claim external reality is just simple because it doesn't have parts much like theists claims about divine simplicity. If you then counter by saying ideas are without parts that wouldn't work. How can a thing without parts be more simple than another thing without parts? It would just cancel out the only one simplest explanation claim since there would be two explanations that are equally simple.
I just don't think it's good enough to have an explanation that maybe can't be proven and can't be given strong support from a strong inductive argument. I don't want a metaphysical just-so story I want more, which is why I'm skeptical of metaphysical realism too. I doubt parsimony would increase the probability of either solipsism, or metaphysical realism by much. Not something I'm going have passionate commitment about. To be honest I'm more willing to go along with metaphysical realism with no strong inclination like a Pyrrhonian skeptic.