A Conscious Universe

[Pizza]

If ontological idealism is true then what we call physical things are in fact mental things/mentally constructed. "As an ontological doctrine, idealism goes further, asserting that all entities are composed of mind or spirit."

But maybe I'm getting this thread confused with another? There many threads about idealism. I'm sorry if I am.

oic

I guess you could say that both idealism and physicalism include each other as subsets. Idealists see all existence as mind, and the experiences from which an objective physical reality is inferred as a special category of ideas (or at least I do). Physicalists see all existence as material, and mind as a special category of physical function.

So how would you go about determining whether one of these positions is true? And if this is impossible, how would you go about establishing which position, if either, should be the default position?

I'm glad you asked this. I don't think either of them are default positions. I'm extremely pessimistic regarding metaphysics. I'm agnostic about whether the physicalism vs idealism debate is intelligible. I'm not saying it is unintelligible. I'm saying I haven't decided whether I think it's intelligible or not. If it is intelligible then I still would question if there is a significant metaphysical debate to be had.

I'm agnostic about the intelligibility and significant of physicalism vs idealism, especially if they include each other as subsets.