Physical idealism

[The Grand Nudger]

I'd say it's clear, because the organization of things cannot be without a framework in which they can be organized.   If you believe in the Big Bang, then clearly the rules by which form would eventually come from chaos were already set.  So fundamental principles --> fundamental ideas --> classes of things.

I'm not sure what the word belief is doing there in reference to the big bang, nor do I see why the things you listed follow from a belief or acceptance of the big bang.

Absolutely, I'd agree that ideas about living bodies must require a material medium for their expression.  As for our long-running arguments, I've already said I'm not talking about that kind of idealism, and this thread should be taken separate from that.

Meh, then we don't agree, and you don't accept the explanations we have for the number of digits we have on our limbs, which is more than just dna but still just a collection of materialist propositions- but it's difficult to see why.

The point I'm making in this thread is that the forms of things are more foundational to reality than the media by which they are expressed.  You could, for example, have many bio-chemical evolutionary paths, possibly not even involving DNA, to things like fins and scales.  However, in an environment in which there is chaos with enough coherence to make persistence of patterns statistically possible, a liquid-water world is going to end up with those same features-- that is, the features themselves drive the evolution, not the specific mechanism of DNA.

Liquid water is a material substance (as are bio-chemical pathways, fins...and scales).  Here again the material is being referenced, not an idea or immaterial principle.

As I said, I'm not disputing any of the material mechanisms, or that of DNA.  My argument is about which is an expression of the other.  The genetic code of humans is as much a record of past statistical moments as it is a code for a future organism.  However, the statistical moments necessarily preceded the genetic code, and are therefore the real cause of "hand" and everything else, and the DNA should be thought of as the carrier-- much as a Windows disk is not the creator of Windows, though if you put the disk into your computer, Windows will usually come to be.

You are -absolutely- disputing the mechanisms we currently point to when you talk about features driving evolution rather than environment and genetics.  In any case, genetic code, like water above, is a material substance..so I don't see where idealism comes in except after materialism is done doing all the explaining. DNA -is- thought of as a carrier of information..of material interactions and histories. Just as before, it's senseless to point to necessarily materialistic propositions and then dispute the material, or claim that they somehow affirm the immaterial. Stolen....concepts. Good luck figuring something out about idealism or a world in which the material is an expression of an idea by pointing to an endless litany of material interactions and substances.