Proof Mind is Fundamental and Matter Doesn't Exist

[The Grand Nudger]

Nobody is denying the existence of light or wavelengths as things we experience.  It is their ultimate nature that is up for debate.

What is a wavelength........divorced from methodological materialism?  Can you answer this?  

Here's the thing.  You can have objects in idealism, too.

Not material objects, so no, you're equivocating.  

There are still electrons and billiard balls, quarks and black holes. . . and, for us, all these things are things to discover and interact with through the agency of mind.  It doesn't matter if they are material, or a simulation in the Matrix, or the expression of abstract principles.  But your thesis is that the "buck stops here," that matter is fundamental to all that does or can exist, and I find this view much less compelling than the idea that matter is the expression of immaterial principles.

My position is that matter appears to be fundamental to all we have observed.  "The Buck" that stops is our observation.  I don;t think you find immaterial principles that compelling at all...you keep using material metaphor to explain yourself.  

Or I can just keeping chanting "Qualia, qualia, qualia."  Because you have nothing for it.

Yet another oft repeated claim for which no truth value can be assigned.  

That's strange to say, since we've already talked about it in many past posts.  But if you want to go on about brute facts, then why is there gravity?

Gravitons?

Why are things arranged in space and time?

Where else would they be arranged...is there another option........?

Why aren't photons little billiard balls after all?

Because then....they'd be little billiard balls, not photons...wtf?

You can chase the answers down a couple more levels, maybe.  But in the end the answer is always the same: just because.

Can you answer these questions from an idealists framework?  

Your world view doesn't include any sensible description or explanation for mind.  My view includes both mind and the things the mind contemplates, including the world you and I both share.  My view is that our shared experiences represent a CATEGORY of idea.  There's nothing about this that makes reality insofar as we can know it different than it is.

Of course it includes sensible descriptions and explanations for mind...what it does not include, apparently, are satisfactory descriptions or explanations....to you.

Believe it or not, I have experience with boxes, too.  I'm not sure why you think this is proof that reality is fundamentally material.  In the end, we should both be honest and accept that in the statment, "I have experience with boxes," I'm focusing on the experience, and you're focusing on the boxes.  But since my reality is made up exclusively of experiences, and not too much of boxes, I prefer my view.

I've long since stopped trying to argue the position with you...it's useless.  I;m trying to show you holes in your process of reasoning, Benny...not demonstrate the nature of the universe. 

You already know that my criticism of the materialist position is summarizable in one word: qualia.  When it comes to psychogony, you've got zero.

But that's not a criticism of materialism..Benny.... it's just one word you like to say.  I'm sorry...did you just claim that there is no theory of development for mind.....?  That's an absurd statement.  Of course there are theories...........

As for things being unknowble. . . I don't understand why you think this is a slam dunk.  I don't know things because I seem to be a part of a greater whole, and that's how things are.  But I can do the same thing to you: since you are so confident about the materialist position, then tell me. . . why is there gravity, rather than a lack of it?   You could qualify your ignorance with the famous physicalist claim that you don't know "yet," but in the end you're going to have a hard time arguing it's turtles all the way down.

Is that why you don't know how many fingers I'm holding up  -right here-...because you're "part of a greater whole", or might there be a more mundane explanation?  Thing is, why should this matter?  If materialism couldn;t explain qualia...and qualia were currently unexplained....then...what?  Idealism doesn;t explain qualia either, or else it wouldn't be "unexplained".   Whats all this bullshit about yet and someday..this is today, that's the status right now, or so you seem to be claiming.  Qualia is unexplained, how is this a criticism of materialism and -not- a criticism of idealism?  

Did I say that the physical world view is foreign to me?  No.  I said it represents a category of experiences-- those which seem to be sharable with others.  My experience of boxes, and of space and time, is similar to yours.  I don't need to borrow or steal anything, because this category of experience is part of my reality as much as it is yours.

You want to set this up as a black vs. white argument, but I've never done so.  I don't have to reject your understanding of how things in the world work.  I reject only that your view represents the foundation of all reality-- in fact it cannot.  So between idealism and material objectivism, idealism is the better position.

You still don't understand the stolen concept.  It isn't a stolen concept because you use it in explanation...it;s a stolen concept because you use the truth of premises within it as an argument against the position itself.  If the position is untrue....so are all of those premises built upon it.  Understand?  The only view I've been discussing, in all of this...is my view of the criticisms and arguments offered.   I don't know what the foundation of reality is.  None of us do.  Matter does, however, appear to be the foundation of all that we've observed, and yes, that includes qualia, regardless of whether or not you find it satisfying.  If the conjecture is that materialism cannot explain something, the conclusion that idealism is thusly better is a massive non-sequitur, congratulations, you've lost your shit entirely.

"Evolution can't explain "x"......so, creationism is a better position."

I think that all I can say here, is what I say to them. If some opposing position were wrong, that doesn't actually increase the standing of ones own position.