Proof Mind is Fundamental and Matter Doesn't Exist

[Rational AKD]

Already been offered, in my first response.  No sense going over it again, and of course other members have done it to death.  Just for starters, make your argument follow, or stop using the word "therefor" - as has already been mentioned by myself and others.  I'm sure there's more, that you've thought more through..it just didn't make it to the page.  Perhaps seeing that would fill in those gaps.  IDK.

i'm saying your criticism or whatever is was there wasn't adding anything to the conversation. the argument does follow. most people criticize premise 1, not the logic.

-If- what you are interested in is establishing the truth of the statement -all is mind-, or a that this life is a sim, physical reductivism gives you a better point from which to argue that (though it's equally true from a multitude of other POVs).  A point from which you can provide demonstrations and evidence, rather than asking someone to accept something as a given for sake of argument.  That's all.

I think you'll have to define physical reductivism a little better. the only close reference is to physical reductionism, but that's the belief cognition can be reduced to the underlying biological mechanisms of the brain... which would be contrary to the statement 'all is mind.'

Sorry, the board -is- the sim, I'm not arguing it..just informing you

a simulation is as "the imitative representation of the functioning of one system or process by means of the functioning of another." that means the game is the simulation, not the circuit boards...

I'm running KSP and Orbiter on my PC right now..and you can't perceive it.  I have em tabbed out,  so -I- can't perceive them either....and yet they run, they exist.

yes, the processes are still running. but the objects of the simulation aren't there when it's not on the screen. the program that runs and loads the map from a data base may exist and run regardless of what we're viewing on the game. but a certain mountain for example, wouldn't exist when it's not loaded and being run by the game. it's the difference between the process that loads the game, and the objects that are loaded by the game. the rest of your paragraph is based on this misunderstanding.

Personally, I'd call what we perceive a sim just as readily, but it's a sim of a sim , in this instance, being run by a different "board", and in fact -being- a different board.  Ironically, that doesn't actually prove or even advance that it's -all- a sim (in the way you would take that to mean)....but I'm more careful with how far I extend my conclusions than you are, apparently.  Proving, for example, that everything we humans experience is a sim running on a biological computer would -not- prove that -everything, everywhere- is a sim, anymore than proving that KSP or Orbiter is a sim would prove that the Apollo missions were really just sims.

my position is reality is being simulated by an immaterial mind. that would make everything that is material a simulation. only minds actually exist.

dualism has -many- problems.....but has, nevertheless, not been disproven by you in this thread.  You didn't even try. It makes little sense for a person arguing for idealism to complain about a lack of substance..btw.

the interaction problem shows that the concept of two fundamental substances making up the world we experience is inconsistent, and incoherent. I would say that's just as much proof as any. if you could address this, perhaps we could further the conversation beyond 'nuh uh.' and i'm not complain about substance... i'm saying dualism is falsified thus monism entails.

[Rational AKD]

So if mind (your mind or a gods mind etc) has been and will be here for eternity (because it is immaterial whatever that means). How has it transcended an infinite series of mental events to be present today or an eternity into the future? It is impossible.

why would it have to 'transcend' them? an infinite series of numbers can be expressed in finite functional terms... so why can't the same be true with future knowledge?

[The Grand Nudger]

i'm saying your criticism or whatever is was there wasn't adding anything to the conversation. the argument does follow. most people criticize premise 1, not the logic.

Yes, yes, I know, when we're wedded to our arguments they always seem to follow, even when we make 90degree turns at full throttle.  But it doesn't matter much at this point.  We can go back and forth or you can rephrase.  Up to you.  You've made a grand claim which you only seem interested in defending by saying "no..no..it follows, I'm telling you it follows" - we disagree.  No amount of restating your position, that it follows, will change mine.  I don't, personally, know whether or not the right answer is monistic idealism (or any other position) - but what I do know is that you've failed to mount an argument.  Presumably, if the contention is true, an argument can be mounted any number of ways - pick another, try again.

I didn't have an issue with accepting premise 1 at all....why would I, it just doesn't matter that I accepted it...it didn't help to take us where you want to go.  

I think you'll have to define physical reductivism a little better. the only close reference is to physical reductionism, but that's the belief cognition can be reduced to the underlying biological mechanisms of the brain... which would be contrary to the statement 'all is mind.'

In this context, that "mind" -is- matter.  There's nothing contrary to that statement in context.  We understand, as I've already explained, that the elephant we perceive is not, actually..an elephant inside of our skulls.  We have mental constructs, our entire world..everything we experience, all that is, so far as we can experience anything, is such a construct.  All, so far as we can tell, is mind, regardless. So, whether you feel that mind is fundamental, or that matter is fundamental, the perceived effect - and so the evidence, and so the available means of inference..-are precisely equal- between just those two points of view in a vacuum...and there are plenty more.

a simulation is as "the imitative representation of the functioning of one system or process by means of the functioning of another." that means the game is the simulation, not the circuit boards...

The game is -also- the board.  Just how do you think that happens?  Magic?  No, machine states.  As I said, not arguing, informing.  Guess what the programming is?  An interface to machine language that arranges, wait for it.......the board.

yes, the processes are still running. but the objects of the simulation aren't there when it's not on the screen. the program that runs and loads the map from a data base may exist and run regardless of what we're viewing on the game. but a certain mountain for example, wouldn't exist when it's not loaded and being run by the game. it's the difference between the process that loads the game, and the objects that are loaded by the game. the rest of your paragraph is based on this misunderstanding.

The objects aren't actually "there" at all, unless by "there" you mean....on the board......the "mountain" continues to exist even when you exit, as physical pieces of machinery we call "memory" in state, nevertheless there is no requirement for an interactive display on a simulation.  Most don't have them.  As above, not arguing, informing.  

my position is reality is being simulated by an immaterial mind. that would make everything that is material a simulation. only minds actually exist.

A very difficult position to argue, I don't envy you.  I hold an easier to argue position.  That our realities are simulations run by material minds.  Alot of crossover between the two.  It's made easier in that we know how material objects can create simulations, and can demonstrate their ability to do so.  I'd hate to have to explain how the immaterial does that, and it would be rough to be the guy advancing that position in the absence of that explanation.

the interaction problem shows that the concept of two fundamental substances making up the world we experience is inconsistent, and incoherent. I would say that's just as much proof as any. if you could address this, perhaps we could further the conversation beyond 'nuh uh.' and i'm not complain about substance... i'm saying dualism is falsified thus monism entails.

It does neither...there you go claiming what ought to be demonstrated...again.  What is there to address?  I'm not arguing that dualism doesn't have problems (or that interaction isn't a huge one, I harangue our resident dualists on that point -every time-),but -all- positions on this periphery have problems.  I'm stating, at this point, that you flat out bullshitted us in the op..and have since wasted alot of words avoiding owning up to that.  That a position has problems doesn't count as disproving that position - I'm sure you wouldn't hold to that contention if I pointed out the glaring problems with immaterial -anythings-......which you seem to believe you've offer proof for - in spite of those problems and having erased nary a single one.  The problem that you've created (which isn't -exactly- the party line when it comes to the interaction problem) is a difficulty in establishing the truth of the position.  It is not a sound refutation of the position as a possibility, which is, apparently..important to you.  You've decided that interaction requires some third "substance"...and further, that this then must then be the fundamental substance......and this ignores a whole host of -possible-, though perhaps not plausible or satisfactory explanations.  There are reasons to conclude that substance dualism isn't true, perhaps couldn't be true, sure.....but no demonstrable proof thereof- which might explain why you've failed to present it.  I'll say this, in favor of dualism as opposed to monistic idealism.....with dualism, at least half the claim is in evidence.....lol.  In any event, you are -claiming- dualism is falsified, but I haven't seen that...and you have every reason to offer it up.


I wonder if you could even begin to argue for monistic idealism without stealing concepts -dependent- on other, contradictory, positions left right and center?  If I simply granted immaterial minds running sims....-no argument required-......tell me, how does immaterial mind do mind to the mind when it minds?  
(Talk about inconsistent, talk about incoherent......  )

[Redbeard The Pink]

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We'll start with Santa Claus, since that's the most amusing can of worms you decided to pop open. No, you cannot disprove the existence of Santa Claus or his workshop. No, going to the North Pole will not help. I used to be one of Santa's elves, you see, and I have first-hand knowledge of the security features in his shop. For one thing, it's surrounded by a magnetic field that fucks with people's compasses and other navigational equipment, causing them to constantly circle the North Pole any time they try to get there; the shop is also surrounded by several "false poles," which are designed to prevent human suspicions about why they can't find the North Pole. Humans have never been to the "real" North Pole, only these false ones.

those 'security' features are ad hoc. it's not a valid refutation of the criticism against it. but again, even if you're right you can only at best conclude Santa is possible...

The only other point from this that's even remotely worth addressing is that stupid question-begging thing you keep bringing up, and all I have to say to that is this: it should be obvious to everyone reading this that you have attempted to deliberately construct your argument so that any time someone brings up evidence from the physical Universe, you can cry "question begging!" and move on.

it has nothing to do with the argument. philosophers of epistemology acknowledge you cannot use experience to explain why you experience because that's question begging. you want to challenge it? try something better than 'nuh-uh.'

What's really more likely: that you (whoever the hell you are) have somehow figured out some unassailable Truth about the basic underpinnings of reality, or that you have constructed a childishly evasive argument that allows you to cop out by name-dropping a fallacy?

are you seriously challenging the argument by appealing to some arbitrary probability you have in your head of the chances I have an argument that proves something about a controversial topic? why don't you just say 'you're wrong because I say so...' it might make you look a little more intelligent...

Besides, even your false fallacy is fallacious in the reasoning by which you arrive at it.

so why is my fallacy accusation false? oh right... because you say so... got it!

The question is whether we can use information from our experience to explain why we experience things, and the answer is that as long as the Universe behaves according to consistent rules, yes we can.

so you're saying because material explanations are consistent they are therefore accurate? look up those two words and tell me the difference.

Regardless of whether reality is physical or conceptual, it still behaves according to apparent rules that allow us to glean information about how it works and what goes on in it.

that justifies functional realism but not objective realism. sure it's reasonable to believe that physical laws are pragmatic to understanding the world we experience. but that doesn't mean they can establish the objectivity of the world beyond what we experience. even I accept functional realism.

As long as the alleged Dreamer doesn't change any of the rules, we can learn things about the reality it's dreaming up by studying that reality, including how and why our bodies and minds behave the way they do.

in some sense, yes. you can find how mind behaves by studying the world, though also through epistemology. but you can't explain the fundamental nature of mind by studying the world. that has to be reasoned.

That doesn't answer questions of metaphysical meaning, but then again neither does your whole argument.

which is exactly why the 'evidence' you bring fourth isn't valid evidence against the argument... because it has metaphysical physical implications while your evidence doesn't.

This is also another instance where you've deliberately chosen shitty wording to meet your ends.

there you go again with your ad hominem... look, if you're not going to say my definitions are invalid then quite frankly I don't care what you think about them. I care about reasons, not your preference of sentence appearance.

You've chosen the word "experience" because of its subjectivity.

actually, I used experience in an objective manner. your thoughts of your experience is subjective, but the contents of what you experience is objective. for example, it's subjective for John to say he tasted good food. but it's objective to say he ate food. if the contents of experience don't have added thoughts or opinions, they are objective.

 more appropriate way to word this question might be, "Is it possible to use evidence from reality to learn about how our brains generate our minds?"

that's a loaded question... it already presumes brains generates minds, which is not agreed upon here.

By throwing the word "experience" around and asking if it's possible to prove experience from experience, you try to make it sound like your opponent is always begging the question any time evidence comes up.

irony... your question was certainly more presumptuous than mine. the wording of my question did presume materialism or idealism, yet the wording of your question clearly presumed materialism.

There is no reason to believe the things you propose unless you can somehow show them with evidence.

if evidence is whatever you arbitrarily claim is so, then can you blame me for not having it?

one last question to try and add to the conversation. if something for all we know and all we could know is possible or could be true, is that reasonable evidence that it is in fact possible or in fact could be true?

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Ok, once again I'm gonna cut to the chase and summarize as much as I can for Mr. Post-Exploder over here.


First off, you really shouldn't be allowed to type the phrase "ad hominem" again until you can demonstrate that you have learned what it fucking means, since at this time you obviously do not. I can say any damn thing I want about your premises, your definitions, and your whole argument without it being ad hominem. I can call them shitty. I can call them puerile. I can call their mother a two-bit whore. None of that is ad hominem. Regardless of what I actually say to you, it doesn't become ad hominem until I attack you and/or your credibility directly and then try to use that as rhetorical leverage against your argument, per the definition:

(of an argument or reaction) directed against a person rather than the position they are maintaining.

So, just to clarify: Profanity =/= ad hominem.


Now repeat that back to me...go slowly if you have to...

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are you seriously challenging the argument by appealing to some arbitrary probability you have in your head of the chances I have an argument that proves something about a controversial topic? why don't you just say 'you're wrong because I say so...' it might make you look a little more intelligent...

Occam's Razor, my friend. Solipsism/Monistic Idealism is neither the simplest nor the most easily testable explanation for how and why we experience the apparent existence of material reality, and until you rule out all simpler explanations and/or come up with a really good piece of observable evidence to prove your claim, Occam's Razor is going to keep cutting your infantile speculating to pieces.

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if evidence is whatever you arbitrarily claim is so, then can you blame me for not having it?

Evidence isn't what I arbitrarily claim it is, but it isn't what you arbitrarily claim it is either. Evidence is repeatable and observable. Simply put: if you can't show it, you can't claim to know it. Your argument isn't evidence just because you want it to be.

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that's a loaded question... it already presumes brains generates minds, which is not agreed upon here.

It's not my fault you won't accept observable evidence from reality. The fact is that if you hook people's heads up to electrical nodes and use stimuli to elicit various emotional and intellectual responses, all different parts of their brains light up depending on what they're thinking and/or experiencing. Because the timing of these events is stimuli, then nerve impulses, then response, it's reasonable to draw a causative chain between these events, suggesting that stimuli from the objective world grants information to the senses, that information is relayed to the brain via nerve impulses, and the brain's nervous response is what we generally experience as thoughts, feelings, and "mind." The evidence indicates that "mind" is a process, not a substance, and that this process is carried out by brains.

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in some sense, yes. you can find how mind behaves by studying the world, though also through epistemology. but you can't explain the fundamental nature of mind by studying the world. that has to be reasoned.

Why the fuck not? Because you say so? If we study enough minds and enough of the observable materials and objects that evidently generate them, why is it then not reasonable to base conclusions about their nature from those observations? Because everything is a dreamland and minds are the only real objects? How does that follow exactly?

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so you're saying because material explanations are consistent they are therefore accurate? look up those two words and tell me the difference.

No, I'm saying we can draw accurate conclusions about the material world because it behaves in measurably consistent ways. I am not conflating accuracy with consistence; I am stating that the possibility of accuracy is sourced by Universal constants.

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it has nothing to do with the argument. philosophers of epistemology acknowledge you cannot use experience to explain why you experience because that's question begging. you want to challenge it? try something better than 'nuh-uh.'

Ok, well...scientists of science acknowledge that natural phenomenon can be understood through material evidence, and that minds are a natural phenomenon. Evolution explains why we have the kinds of brains we have, and biology/neurology/anthropology in tandem pretty well explain how and why human minds work. Sure, we're learning more and more about them the more we study them, but that doesn't mean we currently understand nothing about what they are and how they work (or at least it doesn't mean that for most of us, anyway   ).

[bennyboy]

I don't really need to convince myself.  Everything that I experience, including the apparent physical world, is mind.  The default position is that I don't need to add anything else, i.e. specify the nature of the source of experience which is not really demonstrable anyway.

But basically, yes.  The only difference between a physical world and an idealistic one, in terms of living my life, is that one seems a better fit and the other not so much.  It has little to do with the nature of experience which one I believe.

Mind is the faculty of consciouness  ->  
Conciousness is the is the state of being aware of an external objects and oneself (but it is not the state only of self-awareness, otherwise you would be conscious only of your own consciousness) -> 
Awareness is gained through sense perception of the enviornment -> 
The senses are self authenticating given any attempt to inavlidate them requires their validity -> 
Thus as senses detect objective external reality, external objective reality is real.  Existence, exists.

Everything I experience is of an objective physical world and its causality (including self-awareness, ideas, etc).  The default position is that I do not need to add anything else, ie a world of make-believe where there is only mind, and a mind or minds controlling reality

I don't accept your definitions.

Mind is the arena in which experiences and ideas unfold.  Consciousness means that someone is subjectively aware of the process of experience.  Whether the "objects" of awareness are internal or external doesn't matter.

Nor does it even matter to the idealistic argument whether those objects ARE external to the self, since nobody here is arguing solipsism.  What matters with regards to establishing a default argument is whether they represent more than I experience them as-- specifically whether they are more than ideas with particular forms.  How, using your experiences, would you prove that your "objective" world is not, for example, the Mind of God, or the Matrix?  One cannot.  Therefore, the default position, since my interface with whatever-is-out-there is purely mental, is that whatever-is-out-there is a collection of concepts, ideas, and/or experiences.

[The Grand Nudger]

Hell with the electrodes and equipment.  Get drunk and see what happens to your ghost-mind when your meat-brain gets a good shot or two in it.  That's an experiment we can all run - and so there's no need for debate on that count.  Alcohol does something, regardless of whether or not we're wisps or sweetbread-in-waiting. Beer science, right thur.

[bennyboy]

This appears to be the rather lazy and armchair line of reasoning employed by Deepak Chopra.  The essence of it is that Idealism is sppoky, mysterious and hard to understand, Quantum Theory (QT) is spooky, mysterious and hard to understand.  Therefore QT supports Idealism.  You have to work a lot harder to connect Idealism and QT.  From my rather limited understanding of QT it does nothing at all to validate Idealism, whatever strange and spooky physics exists, it is part of our natural world be it 4, 10 or 11 dimensions, be it packets of energy, strings and branes or solid particles.

I'm not saying "it's mysterious therefore God" or "it's mysterious therefore idealistic." I'm saying "the fundamental elements of reality cannot be expressed except as ideas." I'm not saying we don't know about reality, I'm saying the reality we DO know is more consistent with an idealistic world view than a physicalist one. If I'm wrong, then show me what a photon looks like, or even what physicists think it MIGHT look like. Your argument seems to be a strawman attempt to spin into woo a simple obvservation about the best the science can currently say about reality.

Hell with the electrodes and equipment. Get drunk and see what happens to your ghost-mind when your meat-brain gets a good shot or two in it. That's an experiment we can all run - and so there's no need for debate on that count. Alcohol does something, regardless of whether or not we're wisps or sweetbread-in-waiting. Beer science, right thur.

Yes, but what about this experiment demonstrates that an idealistic world view is wrong, or that a physicalist world view is right? I don't know about AKD, but I'm not arguing solipsism-- why shouldn't I expect the ideas and experiences that are bennyboy to interact with the ideas and concepts which are not bennyboy? Why shouldn't Matrix booze, or Mind-of-God booze, make me drunk?

[The Grand Nudger]

 Therefore, the default position, since my interface with whatever-is-out-there is purely mental, is that whatever-is-out-there is a collection of concepts, ideas, and/or experiences.

Fallacy of composition.  

Might be true.....of course...might be true...just saying.

Similarly, your (our) inability to express what an elementary particle looks like -except- by concept doesn't actually advance the notion that those elementary particles -are- concepts. We just don't have the resolution, and that's pretty run of the mill. Even if we did...we'd still have to use (or find use of) concepts to express them. It's generally not prudent to imagine that a limit (quirk, or attribute) of the apparatus is a limit (quirk, or attribute) of the universe, as per the above. Food for thought, about thought.

(Imma LOL tommorrow morning, I think, btw)

[Whateverist]

Vertigo and nausea: two good reasons not to get into the content of this thread. Have at it! I'll be in the corner puking.

[bennyboy]

 Therefore, the default position, since my interface with whatever-is-out-there is purely mental, is that whatever-is-out-there is a collection of concepts, ideas, and/or experiences.

Fallacy of composition.  

Might be true.....of course...might be true...just saying.

Similarly, your (our) inability to express what an elementary particle looks like -except- by concept doesn't actually advance the notion that those elementary particles -are- concepts.  We just don't have the resolution, and that's pretty run of the mill.  Even if we did...we'd still have to use (or find use of) concepts to express them.  It's generally not prudent to imagine that a limit (quirk, or attribute) of the apparatus is a limit (quirk, or attribute) of the universe, as per the above.  Food for thought, about thought.

(Imma LOL tommorrow morning, I think, btw)

Okay, I think we can both agree that we're pretty much stuck taking knowledge as it is right now in establishing world views.  If science is able to provide new ways of examining the world of the very small, so that things start seeming like things again, I reserve the right to become a physicalist.  You and I both know I'm not holding my breath on that one, but who knows?

I believe the scientific opinion is that it isn't problems with measurement or technology (i.e. the resolution) which make the QM particles seem so squirrely.  It's the nature of the particles themselves.