Proof Mind is Fundamental and Matter Doesn't Exist

[bennyboy]

Benny I think you are getting confused between how perfect our senses are and the validity of the senses.  Senses do not have to be perfect to grasp reality.  Because we cannot see a quantum event doesn't mean our senses are invalid or that the event did not take place. Because we see a pencil apparently bend in water, doesn't mean  anything other than we are seeing the real effect of water on the transmission of light. 

Your definition of "real" begs the question. We aren't talking about the mundane reality of opening a hand and knowing a marble will drop downward due to gravity. We are talking about the knowledge of what underlies ALL experiences, which is not knowable. All that is really knowable are the existence experiences and their specific properties.

But to deny your senses you need to know they are valid.  If you say "my senses are invalid" you rely on auditory input to recognise what you said (and that it was what you intended to say). If you write "my senses are not valid" you rely on sight and touch in the same way. We are justified in relying on sense perception axiomatically.

Same thing, again. If I want to build a bridge, then in that context, concrete and metal are real, as is the bridge once I stand on it. But this doesn't validate assumptions you've made about the ultimate nature of reality.

Your position is that you are inferring from your standing-on-bridge experiences that the bridge is a real object, part of a real objective reality. My position is that you can't arrive at your position without an unprovable assumption, because all your experiences are mental, and you do not in fact know their ultimate source. You do cannot know that your experiences of objects represent objects which exist as more than ideas, because you have no way out of the black box of the self.

I seem unable to get you to answer that question, don't I?

I've already addressed your question, so I assume that you are hoping for a particular kind of answer, and cannot consider the question answered until I set up a nice juicy T-ball for you. Why don't you tell me what you expect me to say about the nature of self and mind, and why you think it matters to this philosophical argument? Alternatively, you can ask the question in terms that don't beg the question, and I'll give a nice, clear answer for you.