(September 30, 2015 at 2:24 pm)Captain Scarlet Wrote: Idealist mantras (and that was my point) do beg the question when the seek to conclude mind as fundamental, by starting with assertions about mind and matter being different. We can say there is something true about mind but not about the rest of reality if we like. But that says nothing about whether mind is matter.To me, saying mind is matter is kind of like saying red is an apple. Ideas are not subject to gravity, AFAIK. But that's not to say that mind is a magical disembodied thing, either.
Quote:With skepticism a your starting point, I am interested to know how you get to being unable to doubt the existence of mind (your own mind). Consciousness I can get, because you cannot doubt your existence or awareness.Well, I think and have experiences, and "mind" is the word for that.
Quote: But how do you get from consciousness to structures enabling thought and mind. Surely you can doubt thinking as well. What if a being was running his thought software on your consciousness operating system?, What if a being was merely projecting their thoughts onto your consciousness? In other words why stop at mind?You aren't questioning the existence of mind, but the nature of agency-- whose mind is it? But that doesn't matter-- mind, whatever it it, supercedes any other knowledge you might have.
To carry your speculation further-- what if we are in the Matrix, or a software simulation, or the Mind of God? What if I'm dreaming, or I'm a brain in a jar? It may be that under ALL these conditions, there will be enough consistency of experience to make one believe in an objective reality that doesn't actually exist except as a collection of ideas.
Quote:I said "consistent to say" not "therefore I can conclude". Therefore I do not not think there that statement was a non sequitur.Okay. Why do you feel it's consistent?
