Proof Mind is Fundamental and Matter Doesn't Exist

[Captain Scarlet]

It maybe that to you it is like saying "red is an apple".  "Ideas are not subject to gravity", is like saying pain is not subject to gravity.  You are severing the link between Ideas (as concepts) and their natural foundation (in brain structures).

This "natural foundation" of which you speak begs the question, because this thread is exactly about whether what you call nature is fundamental.  But even if we accept that mind is purely brain function, you are still equivocating a structure with properties that supervene on it.

  I am not claiming that mind is definitively matter, I do not have enough knowledge on either the nature of the mind or matter to be definitive. But it does seem most likely to me that mind and mental states are built on brain and brain states.  It is Idealism that asserts that mind is not matter and begs the question as well as confuses epistemic and ontological issues

I can't speak for Idealism, only for my ideas about the best default position for a world view.  Let me say this: some circles are particularly alluring.  If I told you that the Bible is the word of God, and that we know it's true because God never lies, you'd point me out right away.  However, you are talking about brains and their states, which are known only through the agency of mind, and then using that agency to establish the "truth" of brains and their states.  Circles are circles, no matter how intuitively right they feel.

No I am not questioning agency, but you and your mind.  If you think a retreat to 'mind' is a proper response to the point I raised then you should not have identified "I think, therefore I am".  You are clearly identifying yourself as having a mind, if the word "I" carries any meaning at all in that sentence.  So I return to the question.  Given your skeptical approach I see no reason why you can make the claim that YOUR mind exists.  You have offered no reasoning as to why someone isn't merely projecting their experiences on to your consciousness, or running their experience and thought software on your conscious operating systems.  

You are equivocating between definitions and labels.  Wherever the thoughts I have come from, the linguistic convention for talking about those ideas to which I have direct access is to use the word "I."  If those ideas come from elsewhere, then "I" am a collection of ideas that come from elsewhere.  The agency issue has nothing to do with choosing between idealism and materialism, at least so far as I can see.

Benny I am not begging the question. I tend towards that conclusion because there is overwhelming, independent and objective evidence to support that assertion. You have severed the link between an idea or pain and the physiology.  And are claiming that an idea is an existent (of a sort) independent of any other existents.  A castle in the air for which I see no justification.

I would consider it properly basic to argue that existence, exists and consciousness, exists. Denial of these seems to lead to a contradiction to me, thus I can build from there.

I think it is you who are equivocating. If you are going to follow through on scepticism it seems proper to ask some simple questions. Do you have a mind? How do you know? Its properly basic to say you are conscious, but how do you get from Consciousness (basic awareness) to Mind (structures enabling you to think philosophical thoughts).