Idealism is more Rational than Materialism

[Angrboda]

1. if metaphysical solipsism is true, then all that exists is your mind and everything else is derived.
2. a consciousness that is truly fundamental would be in control of everything given 1.
3. "I" am not remotely in control of everything.
4. therefore my mind must be derived from something else.

Am I in control of my body, or is this something else in control of my body?

you control your body... but your body isn't everything.

Do you control whether you feel sleepy?
Do you control whether you feel hungry?
Do you control whether you feel frightened?
Do you control whether you feel angry?
Do you control whether you feel sad?
Do you control whether you feel lonely?

[bennyboy]

Do you control whether you feel sleepy?
Do you control whether you feel hungry?
Do you control whether you feel frightened?
Do you control whether you feel angry?
Do you control whether you feel sad?
Do you control whether you feel lonely?

Sometimes. With discipline maybe usually.

[Rational AKD]

No, monism is a form of materialism. Materialism is the more general term.

do you ever know what you're talking about?
monism-"the philosophical view that a variety of existing things can be explained in terms of a single reality or substance."
materialism-"a form of philosophical monism which holds that matter is the fundamental substance in nature, and that all phenomena, including mental phenomena and consciousness, are the result of material interactions."
any questions?

Is that really Idealism? Not really. Where is this simulation hosted?

in the one greater mind... like I've said only a million times by now.

All that the concept of simulation does is to push back the definition of reality one level. It doesn't explain anything.

what are you talking about? if the world is a simulation, it drastically changes how it could have come about.

No, it requires a substance on which to host this simulation.

not if mind is considered its own substance.

No, I don't believe I did any such thing.

you started your post with "Unless you are advocating Solipsism or mass hallucination" thus providing alternatives but dismissing them for no reason.

So, to sum your argument up and make sure I understand it:

I experience my own consiousness.
I experience matter, through my own consiousness.

Therefore it is more likely that my own consiousness exsits, rather than matter. Is that right?

no that is not right... more like:
I experience mental processes.
I experience physical substances as part of my mental processes.
these physical substances are either their own substances my mental processes are interpreting or they are just mental projections.
the later makes fewer assumptions than the former.
Occam's Razor and whatnot... I've already said this.

I don't have much time now so I'll try and address further comments later.

[Rational AKD]

See, you keep deifying individual perception, but then when someone asks the next obvious questions, such as, "Did the Egyptians build the pyramids before your perception of them came into being?" or "Is the earth the same age as your mind?", to avoid looking like you belong in a nut house, you instead just opt to appear silly: ad hoc asserting that mind is really a substance that is MUCH MUCH BIGGER than YOUR mind, though you have no evidence that such a universal mind exists...

you have spent several posts complaining about evidence while providing none of your own. as I said, I'm not trying to prove idealism on this thread... I'm just showing it makes fewer assumptions and thus is more reasonable.

nor what it even means for a mind to exist independent of a material brain.

it means that information is fundamental and everything emerges from it... do you need to think of matter to think of information? or is it the other way around?

That's not parsimonious. Furthermore, you can change your perceptions by influencing your material brain by injecting material chemicals.

which only necessitates a correlation... not a brain mind causality.

Strange, since, you know, you claim mind is non-material and more fundamental.

not strange at all since I literally explained this dozens of times on this thread. brain is the mind's self localization in space... and since it is truly mental... it makes perfect sense for a mental substance to affect mind. particularly since the self localization is what's being affected.

The fewest assumptions demands that the "assembled information" is the atomic "materials" that we can identify entering our sense organs and affecting our brain states.

but I don't see why you need to postulate material substance to explain information. why does information require matter? we don't need to think of information in terms of matter and often times don't. isn't this a good indicator information is not necessarily derived from matter? how can something from matter ever not be in terms of matter?

Nowhere does fewest assumptions = cosmic mind that exists outside of a brain

so postulating something existing outside brain is not parsimonious? why don't you try not to do that then...

and does everything, but nothing more, than the physical world can be understood to do.

obviously the last part isn't true because the hard problem of consciousness is still there... but just for materialists. the hard problem of consciousness is non-existent to idealists.

Because the universe is not so simple that every configuration of matter results in the same properties, which consciousness is. It's like asking, "Why think in terms of liquid when things can be explained as solid?"

except that's not true at all. things we observe can be non-solid. things we observe can't be non-consciousness. see the difference?

Different productions require distinct terms and concepts, which is why we talk of mental experience in connection to brain states and not to rocks or ghosts that watch over the world.

irrelevant due to aforementioned mind-brain correlation.

Which you have zero evidence for, and is only necessary to avoid the ridiculous conclusions I mentioned above...

and this is supposed to be an argument against? the evidence is that it is the only coherent way to explain idealism. I don't see how necessary implications of a proposition prove the proposition wrong... unless you prove the implications wrong... but you didn't. you just said they're "only necessary to avoid ridiculous conclusions" in which case so what?

Note that your not using "mind of God" in a metaphorical sense for something like "principle of order." By mind you explicitly mean a person with feelings and intentions.

that's because a principle can't 'do' anything. we need an explanation for the existence of consciousness and the apparent physical world we experience. for that we need something that can 'act.' a principle can't act, but a mind can.

And then came science, and we discovered that the "information" is not at all like we thought

only concerning the physical world. which under idealism you have 'structural realism' which states the physical world has a defined structure, but is still derived from consciousness. nothing in science has proved idealism wrong.

that the only evidence of minds to have been in existence (at least on our planet) is negligible in comparison to the age of matter

only assuming realism or materialism... which is question begging.

As you also must do, since we have nothing else but perception upon which to do metaphysics.

the difference is the perception you are using is a posteriori. the perception I am using is introspection. we can't be wrong in terms of our own knowledge, because this would be a contradiction of terms. and the nature of our own knowledge tell us everything we experience are in these terms. it is not assuming anything to arrive at this conclusion.

So your parents weren't physically defined until you were born? Remember, you don't mean from your individual perspective, you mean in a metaphysical sense. Their ontology depends on you.

which would only be true of a solipsist... I am not a solipsist.

Strange that we wouldn't be able to tell the difference and yet still be able to identify the phenomenon of illusions?

yes... some illusions are easy to point out. but not by external perception. rather by coherence. coherence can always show what's false, but nothing is incoherent about idealism.

I don't know. But I have every reason to believe that to be the case, and only solipsistic skepticism to think otherwise.

typo? i'm guessing you meant to say "every reason not to believe..." and the skepticism is the very thing that I bring forth to show materialism is not necessarily true. I mean really? 'only positions that aren't mine are possible alternatives..." well duh.

When I write something in stone, why should I think the stone with its inscription disappears when I turn my head, and then re-appears exactly as it was before I looked away, never reverting back its original condition, prior to my tampering, even when I try to change my mind about it? When a child is born, I know that child may think it brought me into existence, just as your thinking you brought the world into existence (But wait, you have your ad hoc deity to solve that), but my experience (and everyone else's) testifies that the child is wrong, just as it testifies you are wrong.

most of this is irrelevant due to straw manning my position into solipsism. since you have demonstrated knowledge that I am not a solipsist, I can only presume that you are maliciously straw manning my position. do you even care for intelligent exchange? or do you have to be dishonest?

Do you control whether you feel sleepy?
Do you control whether you feel hungry?
Do you control whether you feel frightened?
Do you control whether you feel angry?
Do you control whether you feel sad?
Do you control whether you feel lonely?

obviously there are bodily functions you don't control... and there are some you do. I really don't see your point in pointing this out other than to childishly say 'gotcha.' do you have a point?

[FreeTony]

no that is not right... more like:
I experience mental processes.
I experience physical substances as part of my mental processes.
these physical substances are either their own substances my mental processes are interpreting or they are just mental projections.
the later makes fewer assumptions than the former.
Occam's Razor and whatnot... I've already said this.

If we're going to make the fewest assumptions, then it would be better to say: My own consiousness is fundamental, and all other consiousnesses are mental projections

That's just as many assumptions as: My own consiousness is fundamental, and physical substances are mental projections


You are then making more assumptions with the former when you say that other consciousnesses also exist, along with some sort of network of consiousness. You make the mistake when you talk about your experience of your own mental processes, but don't use this as your "fundamental", rather you use a sort of universal consciousness. This isn't what you've experienced.

[Rational AKD]

If we're going to make the fewest assumptions, then it would be better to say: My own consiousness is fundamental, and all other consiousnesses are mental projections

yes, which is why I addressed that by pointing out problems with solipsism.

That's just as many assumptions as: My own consiousness is fundamental, and physical substances are mental projections

not even close. first, 'my own consciousness is fundamental' is undeniably true on a perceptual level. making an unnecessary assumption involves assuming something to explain something in your experience... not assuming something is not involved in your experience. it should be evident that assumptions include what adds to the postulations... not what subtracts. consciousness assumed fundamental is subtracting the postulation of a world independent of consciousness. not adding anything unnecessary.

You are then making more assumptions with the former when you say that other consciousnesses also exist, along with some sort of network of consiousness.

the extra-consciousness is concluded due to problems of solipsism. since 'my' consciousness doesn't appear to be in control of everything in my experience, there must be something outside of it that is. but even if we regard this as an assumption, it still makes less assumptions than materialism while still explaining experience adequately. you have:
materialism assumes material objectively exists and makes up our consciousness and conscious experience, and our conscious projections are descriptions of this material world. idealism assumes extra consciousness, which would be the greater conscious, is behind our experience and consciousness. so... materialism makes 3 assumptions.
1. material objectively exists.
2. this material world is behind our consciousness.
3. our perception accurately represents this physical world.
idealism makes 1
1. a higher consciousness is behind our consciousness. that's it...

You make the mistake when you talk about your experience of your own mental processes, but don't use this as your "fundamental"

but I don't do this without reason... I've stated my reasons for rejecting solipsism many times.

This isn't what you've experienced.

but it better explains what is undeniably part of my experience... lack of control of most everything. as I said, cut out unnecessary postulations... but a source of my consciousness seems necessary to explain my lack of control of my conscious experience.

[The Grand Nudger]

1. a higher consciousness is behind our consciousness. that's it...

LOL, yeah, thats it, it's not like I could parse an easy handful of hidden assumptions in the way that you've expressed this (and this is still apparent after a very obvious attempt to state it as succinctly as possible on your part)........but it doesn't matter, because you make as few assumptions as possible, you don't get rid of what is in evidence or hide the fullest extent of your statement -just- so that you don't have to declare it (even though you'll invariably lean on it in expression).

If you've concluded , through reason, that solipsism is incorrect - then any problem presented by solipsism is not an issue which requires a solution. Plugging this business into the thornier crevices of some argument that you have stated your disagreement with is the height of pointlessness. You've postulated all of this as a solution to the problems of an argument you do not agree with, and with no reference to reality exterior to the conjecture. Good luck with that. I hope that you can one day find the means to determine the veracity of the statements made.

Lets be a little more critical in considering our own positions, shall we?

[Mudhammam]

you have spent several posts complaining about evidence while providing none of your own. as I said, I'm not trying to prove idealism on this thread... I'm just showing it makes fewer assumptions and thus is more reasonable.

Instead you've demonstrated the opposite, that you must conceive mind as a substance which has no relation to the real world, and in turn is a far more elaborate assumption, namely that mind is not fundamentally tied to material brains, of which the only evidence we have contradicts your question begging. Hence, you've failed.

it means that information is fundamental and everything emerges from it... do you need to think of matter to think of information? or is it the other way around?

It makes no difference. That's merely semantics.

which only necessitates a correlation... not a brain mind causality.

LOL. A correlation you have no reason to give precedence on your worldview. The rotation of the sun might as well be correlated to mind too (oh yeah... THAT IS WHAT YOU SAY. LOLOL) .

not strange at all since I literally explained this dozens of times on this thread. brain is the mind's self localization in space... and since it is truly mental... it makes perfect sense for a mental substance to affect mind. particularly since the self localization is what's being affected.

Now why on earth would you have to repeat this meaningless word salad a dozen times? Non-local mind has absolutely no meaning---that's on top of your complete lack of reference to anything in existence that you can actually point to as an example.

but I don't see why you need to postulate material substance to explain information. why does information require matter? we don't need to think of information in terms of matter and often times don't. isn't this a good indicator information is not necessarily derived from matter? how can something from matter ever not be in terms of matter?

Information always refers to matter or material processes. There's literally no distinction, no ghost in the machine, as you desperately want there to be. You say, "I'm thinking of X. X is not non-material," and I say, "Your statement is just another description for the material processes Y and Z," to which you reply, "Yes, they correlate! But that's it!" Of course, you think mind correlates to literally EVERYTHING, so the fact that mind is especially altered in relation to neuron cells and not the feeding habits of seahorses, you can only rely on those working on the assumption of realism and physicalism to find out for you.

so postulating something existing outside brain is not parsimonious? why don't you try not to do that then...
[quote='Rational AKD' pid='868422' dateline='1423390235']obviously the last part isn't true because the hard problem of consciousness is still there... but just for materialists. the hard problem of consciousness is non-existent to idealists.

Lol. You haven't addressed anything. And materialists have addressed the so-called hard problem. That you're unaware or disagree doesn't justify your statement here.

except that's not true at all. things we observe can be non-solid. things we observe can't be non-consciousness. see the difference?

irrelevant due to aforementioned mind-brain correlation.

and this is supposed to be an argument against? the evidence is that it is the only coherent way to explain idealism. I don't see how necessary implications of a proposition prove the proposition wrong... unless you prove the implications wrong... but you didn't. you just said they're "only necessary to avoid ridiculous conclusions" in which case so what?

that's because a principle can't 'do' anything. we need an explanation for the existence of consciousness and the apparent physical world we experience. for that we need something that can 'act.' a principle can't act, but a mind can.

only concerning the physical world. which under idealism you have 'structural realism' which states the physical world has a defined structure, but is still derived from consciousness. nothing in science has proved idealism wrong.

only assuming realism or materialism... which is question begging.

the difference is the perception you are using is a posteriori. the perception I am using is introspection. we can't be wrong in terms of our own knowledge, because this would be a contradiction of terms. and the nature of our own knowledge tell us everything we experience are in these terms. it is not assuming anything to arrive at this conclusion.

which would only be true of a solipsist... I am not a solipsist.

yes... some illusions are easy to point out. but not by external perception. rather by coherence. coherence can always show what's false, but nothing is incoherent about idealism.

typo? i'm guessing you meant to say "every reason not to believe..." and the skepticism is the very thing that I bring forth to show materialism is not necessarily true. I mean really? 'only positions that aren't mine are possible alternatives..." well duh.

most of this is irrelevant due to straw manning my position into solipsism. since you have demonstrated knowledge that I am not a solipsist, I can only presume that you are maliciously straw manning my position. do you even care for intelligent exchange? or do you have to be dishonest?

In all of these fiat assertions, evasions, red herrings, and non-sequiturs, was there a point you wanted to make for your argument? I don't have time to argue in circles about whatever new excuses you can come up with to not put away your Jesus toys.

[bennyboy]

Who the hell's this "Nestor" guy, and why does he look like that other guy who kept claiming to have written "Bennett"?

[Angrboda]

Do you control whether you feel sleepy?
Do you control whether you feel hungry?
Do you control whether you feel frightened?
Do you control whether you feel angry?
Do you control whether you feel sad?
Do you control whether you feel lonely?

obviously there are bodily functions you don't control... and there are some you do. I really don't see your point in pointing this out other than to childishly say 'gotcha.' do you have a point?

In your defense against solipsism, you said that if consciousness were truly fundamental (to all), that it would be in control of everything. My point is that we have conscious states that we aren't fully in control of. It would seem by your logic that this means consciousness isn't fundamental; there is something 'underneath' that at times is in control of our conscious states. That would mean consciousness isn't fundamental; there's something more primary. If I were a physicalist, I'd say that something is hormones. Injecting alcohol induces drunkness; injecting lactic acid induces panic. It would seem from this that the physical body is primary.