Contra Metaphysical Idealism

[bennyboy]

Our description for what energy is consists of very precise mathematical descriptions of its behavior.

Okay. Now, the question is can you actually find MORE to energy than the relationships which describe it, or from which it is inferred?

We can predict how it will behave based on this description. We can explain the behavior of higher-level phenomena by reducing them to this level of description. Saying that stuff is made of "ideas" has none of these qualities. Do you have a model of how 'ideas' behave, or is it just a one size fits all placeholder? We can describe energy and quarks by their behavior. What does the description of an idea look like?

I'm agnostic about the fundamental nature of experiences or relationships between them. I do know exactly what experiences are, though, because they are defined by the having. There is nothing else I can say that about.

I'd like to get your thoughts on split-brain subjects.

Split-brain experiments, aphasias, dementia, etc. make it clear that there is a relationship between the brain and the nature of our experiences. To deny that would be an announcement of solipsism-- i.e. that the brain is just a dreamed-up illusion.

This is not my position. My position is that all our experiences, including those about the physical universe and the relationships embodied in it, are reducible only to ideas, i.e. that "down there" all you'll ever find is that the pot is still at the end of the rainbow: atoms made of protons, electrons and neutrons, these made of quarks, and these made of what? In the end, nothing but an idea of a thing, rather than something that is locatable in time and space and taking volume.