Proof Mind is Fundamental and Matter Doesn't Exist

[Captain Scarlet]

Idealist mantras (and that was my point) do beg the question when the seek to conclude mind as fundamental, by starting with assertions about mind and matter being different. We can say there is something true about mind but not about the rest of reality if we like. But that says nothing about whether mind is matter.  

To me, saying mind is matter is kind of like saying red is an apple.  Ideas are not subject to gravity, AFAIK.  But that's not to say that mind is a magical disembodied thing, either.

With skepticism a your starting point, I am interested to know how you get to being unable to doubt the existence of mind (your own mind). Consciousness I can get, because you cannot doubt your existence or awareness.

Well, I think and have experiences, and "mind" is the word for that.

But how do you get from consciousness to structures enabling thought and mind. Surely you can doubt thinking as well. What if a being was running his thought software on your consciousness operating system?, What if a being was merely projecting their thoughts onto your consciousness? In other words why stop at mind?

You aren't questioning the existence of mind, but the nature of agency-- whose mind is it?  But that doesn't matter-- mind, whatever it it, supercedes any other knowledge you might have.

To carry your speculation further-- what if we are in the Matrix, or a software simulation, or the Mind of God?  What if I'm dreaming, or I'm a brain in a jar?  It may be that under ALL these conditions, there will be enough consistency of experience to make one believe in an objective reality that doesn't actually exist except as a collection of ideas.

I said "consistent to say" not "therefore I can conclude". Therefore I do not not think there that statement was a non sequitur.

Okay.  Why do you feel it's consistent?

It maybe that to you it is like saying "red is an apple".  "Ideas are not subject to gravity", is like saying pain is not subject to gravity.  You are severing the link between Ideas (as concepts) and their natural foundation (in brain structures). This is a floating abstraction, you have built a castle in the air.  I am not claiming that mind is definitively matter, I do not have enough knowledge on either the nature of the mind or matter to be definitive. But it does seem most likely to me that mind and mental states are built on brain and brain states.  It is Idealism that asserts that mind is not matter and begs the question as well as confuses epistemic and ontological issues

No I am not questioning agency, but you and your mind.  If you think a retreat to 'mind' is a proper response to the point I raised then you should not have identified "I think, therefore I am".  You are clearly identifying yourself as having a mind, if the word "I" carries any meaning at all in that sentence.  So I return to the question.  Given your skeptical approach I see no reason why you can make the claim that YOUR mind exists.  You have offered no reasoning as to why someone isn't merely projecting their experiences on to your consciousness, or running their experience and thought software on your conscious operating systems.  

Because it is not inconsistent to say it.