Proof Mind is Fundamental and Matter Doesn't Exist

[The Grand Nudger]

Electrons push back, that's just what we observe.

Okay, you are focusing on the first part of this statement.  But I'm with the second part.

I'm not sure what electrons pushing back has to do with this discussion.  You seem to have the impression that when I take the idealistic position that I'm saying everything is a dream and nothing's real.  But this isn't my argument, nor do I believe it.  Fine.  Electrons push back, and we observe them, and neither one of us has a problem with that.  So. . . ?

Logic is an unyielding system, learn the damned rules.  Science is a very specific endeavor - learn what it actually says.

I'm ready to learn, and I will bow down to your superior knowledge.  What is a QM particle, really, and what is the foundation for its existence, according to science?  I bet you're going to tell me about a super well-defined and totally unambiguous material system upon which QM particles and everything else supervene, and I will be soooo embarrassed.

You've been given that description..and decided instead to reject -your- x, y, and z as though you were rejecting that description.  If QM/QFT  weren't well defined as material systems then they would be unacceptable as scientific theories.  If a particle was not well defined it would be unacceptable as the driving component of that scientific theory.  It would be pilloried in peer review on those grounds alone, but that's not what's happened, is it? Science rolls on the wheels of methodological materialism necessarily, so what you're asking for -as though it didn't exist, despite it being presented to you in this thread, could be no other "x" to begin with...........regardless of whether or not there -is- some other "x".

You should be embarrassed, you've been given what you're asking for and decided to reject it anyway in favor of the x, y, and z of your own choosing -which you then reject as well-. Why is our observation of an electron pushing back so important..well, gee...without stealing a material concept...tell me what "pushing" is, what is it that we're observing -that we've both agreed to just now-, again? That's why. You're making those "assumptions" you criticize others for making without realizing it.

Instead of going back and forth about the same ideas, I'd like to introduce a new perspective: the relationship between principles and expressions of those principles. Would you argue (without regard whether we're talking about the current view on QM/QFT) that the most fundamental building blocks of reality "just are," and that everything we say about them is purely descriptive? Or would you argue that anything that exists is an expression of some underlying principle, which we may or may not be able to infer?

Neither.

I'd argue that whatever exists is preceded (logically if not temporally) by some kind of framework which has the capacity to bear that existence, and which has embedded in it those rules or principles by which things may be brought into existence. However, those rules and principles cannot be said to "exist," because the framework cannot also be the members whose existence it supports without a nasty paradox.

Our models may attempt to describe reality, but that doesn't mean that our models -are- reality. Not really as deep or divergent a thought as you seem to be fishing for...since this is the elephant of mind from pages ago all over again. There isn't enough room in my skull for an elephant. Likewise, there isn't enough room in my skull for the entire universe. What -will- fit in my head is a model of the universe, a model of the elephant. We could test this empirically, if you'd like to help me cram an elephant up my noise, or the universe into my ears. I predict failure on both counts.