Idealism is more Rational than Materialism

[Alex K]

way to claim it is gone without evidence..

Really? Reminds me of the Nessie believer in that movie, who tells the skeptics "I say: show me the non-evidence!"
The sensation you identify with the word consciousness is gone when you are unconscious. That's all you have. You want to special plead "consciousness" into existence by default by extending the meaning of the word as you need it, at the same time shifting the burden of proof in an absolutely ridiculous fashion. I'm not having any of it. If you claim to have an invisible dragon in your garage, you have to give evidence, not the other way around.

[robvalue]

You're saying conciousness is required for conciousness.

My mind is my soul? We don't have any reason to believe the mind actually exists as anything other than an internal process of the brain. It's a description of what we appear to be experiencing, but in what way is conciousness real? Can anyone else detect or measure my soul, mind or conciousness?

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Props though for bringing the discussion further forward than some threads have done in 70 pages.

[Rational AKD]

way to claim it is gone without evidence..

Really? Reminds me of the Nessie believer in that movie, who tells the skeptics "I say: show me the non-evidence!"

quantum entanglement "seems" to be a violation of special relativity. that must mean special relativity is actually wrong. have you abandoned special relativity yet? if not, good... you see what I'm saying. by your logic we don't need any further evidence to show relativity was violated.

The sensation you identify with the word consciousness is gone when you are unconscious.

then you don't have any sensation when you are asleep AKA unconscious... are dreams sensations? if yes then you just proved yourself wrong...

You want to special plead "consciousness" into existence by default by extending the meaning of the word as you need it, at the same time shifting the burden of proof in an absolutely ridiculous fashion.

the words are descriptive of what we observe and we can't observe someone else's mental states. that is not redefining, extending, or anything it is fact. prove me wrong. can we observe someone else's mental states?

If you claim to have an invisible dragon in your garage, you have to give evidence, not the other way around.

the difference is the existence of mind is self substantiating. invisible dragons aren't...

[The Grand Nudger]

The OP has advanced nothing, he has forcefully asserted the truth of what he purports to be arguing for - rather than made a competent argument. I'm unimpressed with the cogito, I'm unimpressed with what we "cannot doubt" I'm unimpressed with what "must be" the most fundamental part of our experience.

[robvalue]

Yes you can observe mental states, you can scan brains.

[Rational AKD]

You're saying conciousness is required for conciousness.

i'm saying we can't doubt consciousness. we can doubt matter. therefore a world without consciousness can't be real but a world without matter can. so why do we need matter?

We don't have any reason to believe the mind actually exists as anything other than an internal process of the brain.

you have no reason to believe it is an internal process of the brain. what we see is that brain can affect mind, but that doesn't mean it causes it.

It's a description of what we appear to be experiencing, but in what way is conciousness real?

real-actually existing as a thing or occurring in fact; not imagined or supposed.
well I don't just imagine or suppose I am conscious. I think therefore I am. that's proof enough for consciousness.

Can anyone else detect or measure my soul, mind or conciousness?

no humans at least. but you can detect your own which is proof enough that consciousness exists.

[Alex K]

Really? Reminds me of the Nessie believer in that movie, who tells the skeptics "I say: show me the non-evidence!"

quantum entanglement "seems" to be a violation of special relativity. that must mean special relativity is actually wrong. have you abandoned special relativity yet? if not, good... you see what I'm saying. by your logic we don't need any further evidence to show relativity was violated.

If you take the imposition of Lorentz covariance on all equations of motion as the definition of special relativity, it doesn't violate it at any level because quantum field theory is completely covariant.
While the mathematical formalism of quantum theory seems to violate the causal structure of minkowski space, upon closer inspection one finds that observables do not because the particle and antiparticle contributions of correlation functions cancel outside the light cone, so all is well and the violation is only in the intermediate formalism. The conservation of Lorentz invariance however was never in doubt there.

I have no idea how this is supposed to be an analogy to the things we are discussing here.

The sensation you identify with the word consciousness is gone when you are unconscious.

then you don't have any sensation when you are asleep AKA unconscious... are dreams sensations? if yes then you just proved yourself wrong...

No I haven't. Why do you think I have??? Sure you can have something like a conscious state while sleeping, but it's obviously the exception. It certainly is when you are in a coma

You want to special plead "consciousness" into existence by default by extending the meaning of the word as you need it, at the same time shifting the burden of proof in an absolutely ridiculous fashion.

the words are descriptive of what we observe and we can't observe someone else's mental states. that is not redefining, extending, or anything it is fact. prove me wrong. can we observe someone else's mental states?

Not observe directly, it seems. Not yet at least. I'm not sure how that relates to my criticism in the paragraph you've quoted

If you claim to have an invisible dragon in your garage, you have to give evidence, not the other way around.

the difference is the existence of mind is self substantiating. invisible dragons aren't...

Self substantiating? Must be some magical property that makes evidence unnecessary. What is it?

[robvalue]

I really can't be sure of anything about my conciousness. I have no idea if this is an internal illusion of my brain or what it is. No one understands conciousness yet, or if it is in any way real. Maybe one day. But solipsism seems impenetrable. I certainly have no evidence of anyone else's consciousness.

Just asserting what it is and what it means is an argument from ignorance, in my opinion.

[Rational AKD]

Yes you can observe mental states, you can scan brains.

brain activity is not necessarily the same as mental states. in idealism mind does not necessitate brains so please don't beg the question...

[bennyboy]

Didn't we already have a thread on idealism? Why did we need another one?