Materialism vs Idealism

originally posted by: Peeple
a reply to: gosseyn

The solution to correct one extreme can't be another one.
Matter passes the 'exists independently of my mind' test, when I can detect, measure, record it, show it to someone else and it's still the same 'thing'.
And consciousness is way harder to prove and to handle, exactly because it is not matter and does not exist independently of my mind, or at least I can't test and/or prove if it does or not, at this point in time.

I don't think it's an either/or situation, humans are a matter & consciousness system and the question how that relates us with the universe...
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Idealism is not solipsism, it is not saying there is nothing out there and that only my mind or your mind exists and everything is the product of imagination. Idealism says that there is something out there, independent from my mind and your mind, but that it is not made of an ontological substance that would be completely different from mental experience, that we call matter. If I look at the moon, it seems to be there for me, and if you look at the same moon, it seems to be there for you, but quantum physics clearly shows us that before being observed, the stuff that we call matter is in a state of uncertainty, it only exists in mathematical equations. Only conscious cognition can give it a "real" appearance. Idealism says the moon is not made of matter, because matter independent from a cognitive mind is an unprovable chimera, but it says that the moon is one mental process of what it calls the universal mind, and the appearance of the moon in the night sky is what that mental process looks like to us.

Consciousness is at the beginning and the end of every human endeavor. Without conscious mental experience, there is nothing. Everything that humans have ever achieved is thanks to mind, or consciousness, or mental experience, call it as you want. The only thing we can be 100% sure about, is that there is consciousness. No one can deny mental states. Do you really need someone else to tell you that what you feel right now is a real phenomenon ?

originally posted by: Itisnowagain
a reply to: gosseyn

The current dominating metaphysical belief is that beyond our perceptions, there is something that we call matter, even though the only evidence that we have to prove the existence of this matter is our perception.

If all beliefs and theories and words and stories drop away.......there is just what is.

Unnameable, unknowable.......just what's appearing.

The illusion is that there is something separate seeing the appearance.
There is only what is appearing to happen.

What you are(as always) talking about is just part of the story. You have to explain why there is an illusion in the first place, why do we feel separated ? Do you think there is matter and there is mind ? And that matter gives rise to mind ?

originally posted by: gosseyn

originally posted by: Itisnowagain
a reply to: gosseyn

The current dominating metaphysical belief is that beyond our perceptions, there is something that we call matter, even though the only evidence that we have to prove the existence of this matter is our perception.

If all beliefs and theories and words and stories drop away.......there is just what is.

Unnameable, unknowable.......just what's appearing.

The illusion is that there is something separate seeing the appearance.
There is only what is appearing to happen.

Do you think there is matter and there is mind ? And that matter gives rise to mind ?

There is just what is appearing.
No matter.....no mind.
And no time.

It's too simple........there is just this.

Words create the illusion that there is other than just what's appearing to happen.

There is no past now......and there is no future now........ there's just stories arising about someone in time.

That someone does not exist.

originally posted by: Degradation33
a reply to: gosseyn

This seems like this thread was meant for my avatar.

I can't elevate consciousness to a universal master consciousness.

I can't see it as part of a greater cosmic divine Mind matrix or give it a non-phenomenal existence. I really try, but in the end my view remains quite borderline nihilistic.

Clumped matter producing waves detected on extremely low bands is interesting but without the material inside the skull your perception can't exist to have an existential crisis.

A person with Alzheimer's can no longer live a typical phenomenal existence. Up to and including false sensory perception rooted in prior experience. Likewise with the experience of a schizophrenic. Imaginary enemies to everyone with standard biology.

Simple things like color blindness show green isn't always green is you lack a certain cone. I have to still assume the pigment chlorophyll looks "green" everywhere there is electromagnetism ('visible' light) to go through RGB filters.

The electromagnetic spectrum is not a lie. The Carrington Event can attest to that. Telegraph wires people weren't even looking at sizzled as high energy waves slammed into the Northern Hemisphere.

In my opinion the role of our individual consciousness is to be real time observers of the information (that exists regardless of our cognition) processed through sensory organs and then responded to by our brains, which are prone to dissimenation defect.

Even delays between precognition and action up to 11 seconds dosen't remove the material out of the following.

If I deprive all my senses and start walking I can't escape the solid nature of matter, even those I have no current conception of, when I walk into a wall.

If we are talking solipsism that is the kryptonite.

Here's a cool article with a ton of those "free will" connotations.

futurism.com...

The type of idealism I am talking about in this thread is not solipsism. I am saying there is a real world out there, but it is not made of some arbitrary totally different ontological substance that we call matter, that even the most sophisticated science cannot prove. Idealism says that your brain is what your mind looks like when observed from outside your mind. Your brain is the appearance of your mind. What is called the "hard problem of consciousness" is a hard problem only because we wrongly think that your brain gives rise to your consciousness(and it's totally unproven, not in even in theory), while in reality it's the opposite. There isn't even the beginning of an explanation as to how electrochemical activity around neurons and synapses gives rise to for example the experience of the green color, or the smell of coffee, or the taste of a strawberry, etc.. On one side, you have the realm of quantities(matter) and on the other side, you have the realm of qualities and we have no idea how to bridge the two, because these two sides are fundamentally different from each other. Idealism says this is just a giant misunderstanding : we have just assumed the existence of something called matter, and to add insult to injury, we have even assumed that this hypothetical ontological substance called matter gives rise to our consciousness.

originally posted by: Itisnowagain

originally posted by: gosseyn

originally posted by: Itisnowagain
a reply to: gosseyn

The current dominating metaphysical belief is that beyond our perceptions, there is something that we call matter, even though the only evidence that we have to prove the existence of this matter is our perception.

If all beliefs and theories and words and stories drop away.......there is just what is.

Unnameable, unknowable.......just what's appearing.

The illusion is that there is something separate seeing the appearance.
There is only what is appearing to happen.

Do you think there is matter and there is mind ? And that matter gives rise to mind ?

There is just what is appearing.
No matter.....no mind.
And no time.

It's too simple........there is just this.

Words create the illusion that there is other than just what's appearing to happen.

There is no past now......and there is no future now........ there's just stories arising about someone in time.

That someone does not exist.

Why is there an illusion to begin with ?

a reply to: gosseyn
In the beginning there was nothing and words appeared that seamed to separate the no thing in to separate things.

Little children are not born with words.....so become as a little child and the kingdom shall be revealed.

The belief in the words......I see a tree.

The no thing was divided into 'me' and 'tree'.

Please try very hard to find something other than what is appearing to happen.

originally posted by: Itisnowagain
a reply to: gosseyn
In the beginning there was nothing and words appeared that seamed to separate the no thing in to separate things.

Little children are not born with words.....so become as a little child and the kingdom shall be revealed.

The belief in the words......I see a tree.

The no thing was divided into 'me' and 'tree'.

Please try very hard to find something other than what is appearing to happen.

Why can't I read your mind and you can't read mine ? Why is there separation ?

a reply to: gosseyn
There isn't separation.
It's a movie.....and it's in the can.

Now could not be any different.......but there is the belief that it could be.

All that mental gymnastics for what?
🤣

originally posted by: Itisnowagain
a reply to: gosseyn
There isn't separation.
It's a movie.....and it's in the can.

Now could not be any different.......but there is the belief that it could be.

All that mental gymnastics for what?
🤣

Why is there a belief, why is there an illusion of separation ?

As always you are stuck in your comfortable ways and you avoid really thinking about those things.

a reply to: gosseyn

Why is there a belief, why is there an illusion of separation ?

Why not?
It's what appears to happen.

Videos links are clicked or not.

a reply to: gosseyn
Why is there a belief in an 'inside' and an 'outside'?

a reply to: gosseyn

Why is there a belief, why is there an illusion of separation ?

Because there is a belief that you are a thing.........

When really there is no you separate from what's happening.
What do the words 'I' or 'me' actually indicate?

"Direct Pointing - What is 'I', 'me'? - The illusion of the seperate self - Advaita / Non-Duality"

You can spend the next 20 years on ATS saying "it's just happening" on every thread, no one will care, because you obviously don't care either. As I said, you are stuck in ways that you find comfortable, avoiding every question that might disturb your artificial sense of wholeness. With that attitude, the stuff you talk about will never become mainstream, will never become science, and will always be considered new age BS.

I will ask these questions to you for the last time, and if you don't want to really think about them, then this conversation is over :
-If there is no separation, why can't I read your mind, why can't I feel what you're feeling ?
-Why is there an illusion to begin with, rather than nothing, or just a wholeness ?

a reply to: gosseyn

This theme of liberating the self to glimpse life's true meaning is also echoed by Einstein later on, in a 1950 letter to console a grieving father Robert S. Marcus:

“A human being is a part of the whole, called by us "Universe," a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest—a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. The striving to free oneself from this delusion is the one issue of true religion. Not to nourish it but to try to overcome it is the way to reach the attainable measure of peace of mind.”

Albert Einstein's Surprising Thoughts on the Meaning of Life - Big Think
bigthink.com...

a reply to: gosseyn

No, because the Moon is a big object and not a single particle. Also the wave function collapsing doesn't need consciousness it's because of quantum decoherence.
In regards to your Moon example the object is not its visible represantation but it's still there, because it influences us/Earth in measurable ways like the tides.
It's the effect that matters and makes stuff real not if I see it with my own eyes or not.
Are the electrons giving my home electricity waves or particles? Who the # cares? They're there measurable, detectable - they're doing things, they're not just possibilities.

I'm all for consciousness and direct experience, I can accept that it influences me physically, through me others etc. But you'll have a very hard time finding consciousness not bound to a matter body.

a reply to: Peeple

Idealism is not denying the body, is not denying the moon, is not denying that there is a real world out there that influences us and that we influence. Idealism is denying that there exists something called matter which is ontologically different than consciousness. Idealism postulates that there is only one ontological substance, which is mind, or mental experience. Idealism states that the moon is not made of matter, but is made of a mental process that is part of what idealism calls the universal mind. The atoms and the electrons are just what this mental process looks like to us. The atoms and the electrons don't do anything by themselves, they are the representation of this mental process in action.

You can't think about idealism with the tools of materialism. If you postulate that there exists matter on one side and mind on the other while talking about idealism, there you won't understand it.

a reply to: gosseyn

Idealism states that the moon is not made of matter, but is made of a mental process that is part of what idealism calls the universal mind.

Circling back around to what I said earlier, you would have to demonstrate that the idea of the moon existed before the first moon was physically formed.

originally posted by: TzarChasm
In order for this ideology to hold any weight, you would have to demonstrate that consciousness preceded matter. In other words, the universe was thinking before the universe physically existed.

Look at the experiments in quantum physics. The measurement problem explains this exact phenomenon. Matter collapses from a probabilistic waveform when it gets observed by a conscious measurement. We noticed this effect on the particle level, so the very fundamental quantum units that congregate together to form our reality, are very much aware of awareness. You can't get around consciousness as the fundamental aspect of the universe.



a reply to: Peeple

I think the best metaphor is that matter is the shadow, and consciousness is the light. Matter responds synchronously with the working of the mind, so much so that someone studying Matter may even be deceived and suppose that the shadows are creating the light (i.e. Matter created mind). The world is not 100% light, or 100% darkness, it is the symphony of the two acting together. Although I heard there is a world of pure light and no darkness

a reply to: cooperton

Matter collapses from a probabilistic waveform when it gets observed by a conscious measurement

No.

originally posted by: TzarChasm
a reply to: cooperton

No.

Your belief in material reductionism does not defeat over 100 years of research in quantum physics and particle behavior. Contemporary data has rendered your thinking obsolete. I'm not sure how a conscious agent as your self ever disregarded consciousness as a fundamental aspect of existence