Contra Metaphysical Idealism

[bennyboy]

Platonism posits an EXTRA layer of reality. I certainly don't intend to indicate that. I suppose you could say idealism means we're living in Plato's third world exclusively.

Where do elemental concepts or ideas reside? Where does the universe reside? Where does God reside? When you are stating a brute fact about the underlying substance of things, there's always the lurking appeal to infinite regression or to paradox. "Given system X, what underlies it? System Y or nothing. If system Y, what underlies it? If nothing, then what is the magical mechanism by which is it self-existent?"

You are asking nonsensical questions.
Concepts and ideas exist in minds, not 'out there'.

Right. They are nonsensical questions. When the framework of reality is considered physical, then asking where that framework exists is nonsensical. Where is the universe?

The same goes for asking where ideas are in an idealistic reality. They ARE the reality. Asking where they are doesn't make sense.

Please explain 'magical mechanism'.
Please explain why there needs to be anything 'underlying' reality.

I'm not sponsoring the idea of a magical mechanism. I'm saying that all views of reality, including the physical and idealistc ones, are subject to issues of infinite regression or the problem of uncreated existence.

Well, reality is experience, or at least experiences are the only things that can be known for sure to be real. A physical monist world view posits that there are existent objects, arranged in space and time, which underly our experiences. Does there need to be such an underlying reality? No-- in fact, nobody can prove that there is one. That's the point.