Proof Mind is Fundamental and Matter Doesn't Exist

[bennyboy]

You and I both consider them to be representative.  Meaningless criticism in general, and irrelevant -specifically- to any dispute between idealism or materialism.  More puzzling, I think..is that this would also have to apply to idealism.  If neither of us have direct access, so what?  It's a wash,......and I'm still explaining while you're busy "subsuming". 

The difference is that I have direct access to the experience of ideas, and therefore choose idealism as the most sensible default position. You do not have direct access to the material monism about which you have ideas, unless you pretend that the subjective experience of mind and the objective "reality" of the objects contemplated by mind are identical.

Of course, the deeper problem here, in a discussion between idealism and materialism, is calling something "an idea" as though this made it immaterial by default.  That is, after all, precisely the thing in question.  IDK what to tell ya bud, if you want to talk about solipsism maybe you should make that thread?  If objections from solipsism are compelling to you, then you should understand why a comp fallacy won't work here.  If all you know about are your ideas, and you aren't comfortable considering those ideas to be referent, then even if -you- were made out of ideas, the universe is still made out of "x".  The only way to resolve this, the only way to avoid a comp fallacy and use this premise to reach the desired conclusion....is to propose that -you- are the universe, in toto.

In essence, you are right. I cannot prove that there is more than MY experiences. However, my experiences of others is compelling enough for me to take that they exist-- somehow. You go this far, and one step further-- declaring that not only do they exist, but they exist in a particular way, in a universe which is founded on material and the principles which arise out of that material (which you must claim since otherwise, matter arises out of immaterial principles, which obviously is antithetical to your position). I don't find it necessary to take that one extra step; I default to the position that things are as they seem-- and they seem to be experiences.

You might be, but we haven't gotten any closer to determining anything about the universe, we haven't learned anything that could serve as a metric for deciding between idealism and materialism.

If we can't know, we can't know...and I suppose we all have to make our peace with that, however, a person who makes claims as to what  cannot explain the universe (or even the mind), a person who weighs materialism and idealism and chooses one or the other...very clearly assumes that we can know these things.  They're making a statement of knowledge, after all.

I'm fine with being an agnostic idealist. It is the gnostic stance of materialists that I find annoying, not so much the idea of materialism itself. As I have said, the material view is of great utility when I want to have a bridge that doesn't collapse or to invent a new superadhesive polymer or something.