A Conscious Universe

[Pizza]

I'd say that epistemological idealism implies metaphysical idealism as the default position. The question given the philosophical fact (and I think it is a fact) of espistemological idealism, or at least of solipsism as the only truly gnostic position, then it is not knowable whether any limitations intrinsic to the human experience are veiling, or even distorting, our understanding of whatever reality underlies our experiences.

I think epistemological idealism implies epistemological solipsism( "that knowledge of anything outside one's own mind is unsure; the external world and other minds cannot be known and might not exist outside the mind" as wiki puts it), yes but not metaphysical solipsism. But yes you can be both.

As we've discuess, physics as a subject seen in this way is just studying reality, whatever it is, given the caveats that: 1) there's enough consistency to merit study, and 2) the one studying has the power to interact with that reality in order to verify its truth. But that physicalism is, at least to me, different than what most people mean when they view idealism and physicalism as diametrically opposite positions.

Fair enough. I don't think we disagree here. It's good to point this out because many people think incorrectly that idealism is anti-science.

We can renegotiate semantics at any time, and I think we are in fact doing that right now. However, given the OP, this view of physicalism isn't really at odds with the flavor of idealism that I gravitate to, since it can comfortably reduce all of existence down to ideas without invalidating itself. Maybe that's what you're trying to say, after all?

My point in this thread is that I believe important aspects of reality cannot be expressed in terms of the interaction of real objects in a geometric 3D space framework: either because they are things with no volume or no mass, or because they are things which cannot reasonably be inferred from the observation of any physical system without begging the question: specifically, the nature of photons and the nature of mind. Given this, it seems that there are things which are not actually objects, and that these things are coherent ONLY as ideas.

I think about philosophy a lot for some reason and I'm not as scared of solipsism as most people. I also respect George Berkeley's immaterialism more than most; it is so elegance. I lean towards the B-theory of time. I guess we may agree more than not. I just don't agree with metaphysical idealism but that's because I don't care for the mind independent vs dependent dichotomy.