Well, first I haven't a clue what Kastrup is talking about.

I take an idealist to be someone who believes that minds are immaterial objects and that reality is made solely of minds and the contents of minds. So, everything is either an immaterial mind or a state of such a mind. (Berkeley is the paradigm case of an idealist, and that's what he believed).

One way of arriving at the view is from particular self-evident truths, such as that a) mental states cannot exist absent a mind whose states they are; that b) mental states can only resemble other mental states; and c) that the external sensible world is a place that resembles our own sensations of it.

I don't understand the stuff about neuroscience. A neuroscientist - so long as they stick to doing neuroscience and do not start doing metaphysics - is investigating a small part of the sensible world. They're not committed to any view about what the sensible world is made of. So it strikes me as obvious that idealism is consistent with neuroscience - how could it not be? Those who think otherwise must mistakenly be thinking that neuroscience carries with it some commitment to materialism about what it is investigating - which is just false.

1. How we can appear to have separate people with unique conscious experiences. — Tom Storm

Idealism is not the view that there is one mind (yours). That's solipsism.

I am an idealist and I believe in billions of minds. And so did Berkeley. Note, the basis upon which one infers the existence of other minds is going to be the same whether one is an idealist or a materialist about them (with one exception - the idealist will typically posit one extra mind as the mind who is bearing the mental states constitutive of the sensible world we're all inhabiting). So, although many confuse idealism with solipsism, it is materialism that is the more stingy view when it comes to positing other minds.

2. How reality (such as it is) appears to be consistent and regular. — Tom Storm

The external sensible world appears to be external and singular - that is, there is 'the' external world, not lots of them. Conclusion: the sensations constitutive of the external sensible world are the sensations of a single external mind. One then concludes that as the sensations seem to cohere, then the mind whose sensations they are is a very orderly one with an extremely good memory.

3. How evolution tracks to idealism. — Tom Storm

The evolutionary process would describe the thought process of the mind whose sensations constitute the external sensible world.

4. Whether we require a universal mind for idealism to be coherent. Other models? — Tom Storm

There needs to be a mind bearing any sensation that there is. If one supposed, for instance, that the external sensible world is not external at all, but a figment of one's own imagination, then one still has a universal mind on the books, it's just that one has made it one's own (unjustifiably, of course).

5. Whether the Copenhagen Interpretation and the perceived flaws in a materialist metaphysics have been key in a recent revival of idealism? — Tom Storm

No, for science investigates the behaviour of the sensible world and does not take a stand on its composition. That is, whether the sensible world is made of mental states or mind-external extended substances is a question in metaphysics that science has no bearing on.

6. What might be the role of human beings in an idealist model? — Tom Storm

There's no connection between idealism and us having any particular role. Note, to have a role you need to have been created for a purpose. Well, it is consistent with idealism that we have not been created for any purpose (for idealism is not a view about how minds come to be, but a view about what reality is made of). And it is consistent with idealism that we do have a role. (And it is consistent with materialism about you that you have a role - if your parents created you in order to stop up a hole in the wall, then that's your role).

The sensible world, on idealism, is the creation of a mind. And this means it can in principle have a purpose. But then that's true if the sensible world is material as well, as nothing stops that from being the creation of a mind either (it just would not be 'in' the mind in question, that's all).

To put it bluntly, Hoffman is misusing science. To set up his model he has to have preconceived notions of what is real and what isn't. Not only does his theory start with evolution then throws it out, but his theory that to perceive falsely is better than to perceive rightly (in the course of evolution) is indefensible. He is a conman who doesnt understand philosophy

For Kastrup a belief in physicalism is confusing the map for the territory. — Tom Storm

For a physicalist, (Kastrup's) idealism confuses the map with the territory – that it is (we are) maps "all the way down".

Thank you for your considered responses. It is interesting how often idealism is understood as solipsism.

There's no connection between idealism and us having any particular role. Note, to have a role you need to have been created for a purpose. — Bartricks

My words were probably unclear. I wasn't implying that idealism had a role for us but more that if we are idealists how might this have impact upon how we should live?

Idealism is not the view that there is one mind (yours). That's solipsism.

I am an idealist and I believe in billions of minds. And so did Berkeley. Note, the basis upon which one infers the existence of other minds is going to be the same whether one is an idealist or an immaterialist (with one exception - the idealist will typically posit one extra mind as the mind who is bearing the mental states constitutive of the sensible world we're all inhabiting). — Bartricks

Yes, that's what I was getting at with the question. Would I be correct in assuming that for you God is the universal mind in idealism?

For a physicalist, (Kastrup's) idealism confuses the map with the territory. — 180 Proof

May well do. It's interesting how this is one of those rhetorical tricks which can so easily be turned on the trickster.

Have you ever had any sympathy for any form of idealism?

My words were probably unclear. I wasn't implying that idealism had a role for us but more that if we are idealists how might this have impact upon how we should live? — Tom Storm

There's a tension between materialism and normativity. That is, it is hard to make sense of how there could be 'shoulds' in a wholly material universe. Such shoulds - the shoulds of reason - seem to require there to be a master mind whose edicts they are. And idealism arrives at the conclusion that there is such a mind by an independent route (although whether the mind whose sensible contents constitutes the sensible world is the same mind whose edicts constitute the edicts of Reason is an open question). So in that sense there is a happy marriage between idealism and the reality of morality. But dualism could also accommodate normativity as well.

Yes, that's what I was getting at with the question. Would I be correct in assuming that for you God is the universal mind in idealism? — Tom Storm

I have no confident views on the matter. But that'd be the default, given that one should not posit two minds to do the work that one can do.

Have you ever had any sympathy for any form of idealism? — Tom Storm

:yikes: :rofl:

First off, this is a really interesting thread.

..as I’ve elaborated upon more extensively in a Scientific American essay, our sensory apparatus has evolved to present our environment to us not as it is in itself, but instead in a coded and truncated form as a ‘dashboard of dials.’ The physical world is the dials.

I think this is true but wrong. Oh, wait, I forgot the Law of the Excluded Middle. It's true sometimes. That's not right. It's true if it makes sense in a particular situation. Ok, that will do for a working answer. I've tried to avoid this recently, since I've overused it, but it's relevant here. The isms you're talking about here are metaphysical entities. As such, they are not true or untrue, only useful or not useful in a particular situation. That's gets back to the Kastrup quote. Sometimes his way of seeing things is a good one, but sometimes it makes sense to see the world as objective reality seen imperfectly.

Once this is clarified, analytic idealism is entirely consistent with the observations of neuroscience

Usually, reality is consistent with whatever sound metaphysical position one takes.

...brain function is part of what our conscious inner life looks like when observed from across a dissociative boundary. Therefore, there must be tight correlations between patterns of brain activity and conscious inner life, for the former is simply the extrinsic appearance of the latter; a pixelated appearance

I think I'm ok with this.

For Kastrup a belief in physicalism is confusing the map for the territory. — Tom Storm

Again, right but wrong.

2. How reality (such as it is) appears to be consistent and regular. — Tom Storm

Because it sort of is and because we overlay consistent and regular on a swirling flow.

3. How evolution tracks to idealism. — Tom Storm

I don't see why it doesn't track physicalism just as well.

4. Whether we require a universal mind for idealism to be coherent. Other models? — Tom Storm

Actually, in order for most, perhaps all, metaphysical positions to be true, I've always thought that God or god surrogate is needed.

6. What might be the role of human beings in an idealist model? — Tom Storm

I don't see how there is any inconsistency.

I've written this before. I read someone, can't remember who, who wrote that mathematicians tend idealists and physicists tend to be physicalists. That makes sense to me. I don't know whether they enter their professions because of their metaphysical predilections or their professions mold their metaphysics.

A neuroscientist - so long as they stick to doing neuroscience and do not start doing metaphysics - is investigating a small part of the sensible world. They're not committed to any view about what the sensible world is made of. So it strikes me as obvious that idealism is consistent with neuroscience - how could it not be? Those who think otherwise must mistakenly be thinking that neuroscience carries with it some commitment to materialism about what it is investigating - which is just false. — Bartricks

I think your conclusions are right, with a quibble. Although neuroscientists don't generally do metaphysics, they swim in a metaphysical sea. I'd guess for most that sea is physicalism, at least during work hours. I agree that idealism is consistent with neuroscience. As you note - how could it not be. I also agree that neuroscience carries no metaphysical commitment to materialism.

the basis upon which one infers the existence of other minds is going to be the same whether one is an idealist or a materialist about them — Bartricks

I agree with this.

with one exception - the idealist will typically posit one extra mind as the mind who is bearing the mental states constitutive of the sensible world we're all inhabiting — Bartricks

But disagree with this. I don't see any reason to think that our mind is any different from all the others or that saying it is is useful, much less true.

No, for science investigates the behaviour of the sensible world and does not take a stand on its composition. That is, whether the sensible world is made of mental states or mind-external extended substances is a question in metaphysics that science has no bearing on. — Bartricks

Well, it is consistent with idealism that we have not been created for any purpose (for idealism is not a view about how minds come to be, but a view about what reality is made of). And it is consistent with idealism that we do have a role. (And it is consistent with materialism about you that you have a role - if your parents created you in order to stop up a hole in the wall, then that's your role). — Bartricks

I agree.

There's a tension between materialism and normativity. That is, it is hard to make sense of how there could be 'shoulds' in a wholly material universe. Such shoulds - the shoulds of reason - seem to require there to be a master mind whose edicts they are. And idealism arrives at the conclusion that there is such a mind by an independent route. — Bartricks

I don't agree with this. We have evolved as, not moral, but rule making organisms. I don't see why evolution and the evolution of mind are in any way inconsistent with materialism.

with one exception - the idealist will typically posit one extra mind as the mind who is bearing the mental states constitutive of the sensible world we're all inhabiting
— Bartricks

But disagree with this. I don't see any reason to think that our mind is any different from all the others or that saying it is is useful, much less true. — T Clark

I am not sure what you're disagreeing with, for I am not positing a different mind but an extra mind. The idealist takes the sensations constitutive of the external world to be the sensations of a mind (for all sensations are) and thus the external world turns out to be the mental activity of a mind. Not mine or yours, so another mind. That's one mind more than the materialist posits. For the materialist does not posit a mind, but an extra-mental extended realm. So, the idealist posits one more mind than a materialist, other things being equal. Neither view should be confused with solipsism, but given that materialists posit fewer minds than idealists, other things being equal, it is the materialist who is closer to being a solipsist, despite the tendency to think that idealism somehow implies it.

I don't agree with this. We have evolved as, not moral, but rule making organisms. I don't see why evolution and the evolution of mind are in any way inconsistent with materialism. — T Clark

That is not an account of how materialism can accommodate the shoulds of normativity. It is, rather, an account of how we have come to take there to be such shoulds. (This is my point in another thread, the one on God, evolution and intuition).

A materialist seems committed to having to make the shoulds of normativity edicts that we are issuing to ourselves and others. And those views about normativity - individual and collective subjectivist views - are grossly implausible (they're pretty much universally rejected). If we make a rule that says if P, then Q, then if Q then P, that does not mean that we have reason to believe that if P then Q, then if Q then P. Hence why normativity poses a problem: there are norms of reason, but nothing in a material world to be the source of them save us (and clearly we are not their source).

I'm not an idealist myself, but I'm particularly keen to enhance my grasp of how idealism accounts for such matters as:

1. How we can appear to have separate people with unique conscious experiences.
2. How reality (such as it is) appears to be consistent and regular.
3. How evolution tracks to idealism.
4. Whether we require a universal mind for idealism to be coherent. Other models?
5. Whether the Copenhagen Interpretation and the perceived flaws in a materialist metaphysics have been key in a recent revival of idealism?
6. What might be the role of human beings in an idealist model? — Tom Storm

1. An idealist might say 'entities are finite monads within / constituting The Infinite Monad and only from the perspective of finite monads do finite monads "appear separate with unique conscious experiences" (i.e. a Leibniz-Berkeley hybrid).'

2. An idealist might say 'reality is "consistent and regular" due to the Principle of Sufficient Reason constituted by Platonic Forms, such as in Schopenhauer's "Fourfold Root of ..." (& WWR, vol 1.)'

3. An idealist might say 'like matter, or nature, "evolution" is merely an idea – a self-organizing sortition algorithm.'

4. An idealist might say (see #1).

5. An idealist might say 'more than a "revival", a vindication of idealism (i.e. im-materialism, non-physicalism, anti-realism, etc)'

6. An idealist might say 'human beings are finite monads (see #1).'

NB: Though I'm an anti-idealist (and despite my biases), I believe my interpretative answers are fairly charitable. :smirk:

1. How we can appear to have separate people with unique conscious experiences.

They're not totally unique. The more unique there are, the harder to communicate. Look up the meaning of 'idiosyncratic'. It basically means not understandable to others.

2. How reality (such as it is) appears to be consistent and regular.

We are all the same species, culture, language group, etc. But glaring discrepancies appear all the time. I mean, there are still people who think Trump was great.

3. How evolution tracks to idealism.

Appealing to evolution as a support for why reason might be true is the subject of Plantinga's Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism, and also the broader Argument from Reason. Both have generated many volumes.

4. Whether we require a universal mind for idealism to be coherent. Other models?

That mind is not numerically one, but is of a kind, like space - the capacity for experience, or something of that nature.

5. Whether the Copenhagen Interpretation and the perceived flaws in a materialist metaphysics have been key in a recent revival of idealism?

If the alternative is Everett, the Copenhagen is a model of modest philosophical reasoning.

6. What might be the role of human beings in an idealist model?

Sentient life of all kinds are the way the Universe realises dimensions of being. Rational sentient beings are able to reflect on that.

The Nothing Special corollary of The Mediocrity Principle

Any theory/philosophy, including but not limited to idealism, that implies the existence/occurrence of something special is likely to be wrong/nonsense.

:up:

Representationalism is odd in that it always assumes an image or “representation” (“a pixelated appearance”) of what is seen, but can never show us this image, upon what medium it appears, and can never point to the being whom is observing it. It is odd that it is present in both materialism and idealism, as if one conceded something to the other.

They're not totally unique. The more unique there are, the harder to communicate. Look up the meaning of 'idiosyncratic'. It basically means not understandable to others. — Wayfarer

Goodness, I need to watch the words I use! Not my intended meaning. By 'unique' I just meant people have individual conscious experiences that don't seem connected to other's conscious experiences. No hive mind. Kastrup says this is one of the most common questions he gets asked - 'How come we are all different if all reality is one consciousness.' It's like the opposite of solipsism.

We are all the same species, culture, language group, etc. But glaring discrepancies appear all the time. I mean, there are still people who think Trump was great. — Wayfarer

I was referring to reality - 'the world' and observed regularities within it.

Appealing to evolution as a support for why reason might be true is the subject of Plantinga's Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism, and also the broader Argument from Reason. Both have generated many volumes. — Wayfarer

Idealists like Hoffman and Kastrup say that idealism supports evolution - I don't quite get the model. If all is mentation why did life evolve? -Presumably there was a concomitance emergence of higher consciousness in humans somewhere between being a fish and being a high functioning ape? :razz:

That mind is not numerically one, but is of a kind, like space - the capacity for experience, or something of that nature. — Wayfarer

I was referring to universal mind as a 'god surrogate' that holds the reality we perceive in check. At least this is how Berkeley and Kastrup seem to describe it. E.g., Why is our car still in the carport the next morning after we sleep? Is the moon still there when we are not looking?

Sentient life of all kinds are the way the Universe realizes dimensions of being. Rational sentient beings are able to reflect on that. — Wayfarer

So by that token idealism makes no practical difference to a life lived? We can reflect perfectly well as physicalists or is it your contention that we need to know more to reflect properly?

So how do account for evolution, geology and cosmology? Were there always some kind of minds around to have ideas of stars forming, mountains wearing down, and creatures evolving, or did the universe only begin existing as ideas for humans? What happens far out in space where our instruments can't see? What about deep in the Earth? Are all those only ideas to someone as well? Why do we have ideas of such a large universe with such deep time if they're just ideas?

The thing with neuroscience is that the brain is taken to explain the functionality of the mind. But we don't normally have experiences of our brain. Why is it that investigation our head gives us an idea of an organ that's supposed to be responsible for us having those ideas? There's a thousand such questions about everything. How come we find fossils in the ground? Are they ideas of something that lived before we did?

How do you explain pandemics? Is Covid just an idea? People get sick and die because of an idea? What is death to an idealist? How do ideas cause you to die?

Nice and charitable interpretation.

It is odd that it is present in both materialism and idealism, as if one conceded something to the other. — NOS4A2

Interesting point.

The thing with neuroscience is that the brain is taken to explain the functionality of the mind. But we don't normally have experiences of our brain. Why is it that investigation our head gives us an idea of an organ that's supposed to be responsible for us having those ideas? There's a thousand such questions about everything. How come we find fossils in the ground? Are they ideas of something that lived before we did?

How do you explain pandemics? Is Covid just an idea? People get sick and die because of an idea? What is death to an idealist? How do ideas cause you to die? — Marchesk

Idealists have interesting answers for all these questions. Nothing is 'just an idea' it seems. Idealism seems to maintain that all we have access to is experience which presents itself to us symbolically as the matter we think we are seeing. So no doubt COVID, or falling off a cliff for that matter, are representations of something happening in consciousness when viewed from a particular perspective.

By 'unique' I just meant people have individual conscious experiences that don't seem connected to other's conscious experiences. — Tom Storm

But they are! We're connected with others through all of our relationships, speech, thoughts, empathy, and so on. The only sense in which we're not connected, is that each individual's first person perspective is unique to oneself. But that's also the same for everyone; everyone is 'I' from their own unique perspective. I know only my own pains, joys, and sensations directly, but I have no reason to believe that all of the other beings I'm sorrounded by do not have exactly analogous experiences of their own. Empathy is an antidote to solipsism.

That also accounts for the regularities we perceive, the fact that we all seem to see the same things. Hegel discussed that. 'Like Kant, Hegel believed that we do not perceive the world or anything in it directly and that all our minds have access to is ideas of the world—images, perceptions, concepts. For Kant and Hegel, the only reality we know is a virtual reality. Hegel’s idealism differs from Kant’s in two ways. First, Hegel believed that the ideas we have of the world are social, which is to say that the ideas that we possess individually are utterly shaped by the ideas that other people possess. Our minds have been shaped by the thoughts of other people through the language we speak, the traditions and mores of our society, and the cultural and religious institutions of which we are a part' - lecture notes.

Why is our car still in the carport the next morning after we sleep? Is the moon still there when we are not looking? — Tom Storm

It's not as if things come into and go out of existence when you or I are looking at them, or not. Existence of the car or the moon or anything else is constituted within our cognition of those objects. Furthermore, they are designated objects by sentient beings.

Presumably there was a concomitance emergence of higher consciousness in humans somewhere between being a fish and being a high functioning ape? — Tom Storm

You will often encounter those who rationalise human intelligence because of its supposed 'survival advantage'. You know, we were sorrounded by sabre-tooth tigers, but we could outwit them because of our bigger intelligence. I think that argument is dubious, because sharks, blue-green algae, and mushrooms have survived and flourished for hundreds of millions of years with little or nothing by way of rational intelligence. Second, because it subordinates reason to the exigencies of survival, which is typical of social- and some schools of neo-darwinism. It sells reason short, by equating it to mere adaptation. (Dawkins et al often commit this fallacy).

My view is, plainly h. sapiens evolved, along the lines that paleontology and evolutionary biology has discerned (although the detail are continuously changing). But the advent of speech, reasoning, story-telling and tool-making opens up a dimension of being which simply can't be explained in purely biological terms, without falling into biological reductionism. One thing I think I can state is that h.sapiens alone is able to ask 'what am I?' (I know other animals can pass the mirror test, but I don't think it counts.)

So what evolves is not reason as such, but the capacity for reason. I mean, it's not as it the law of the excluded middle, or real numbers, came into existence due to evolution. What evolved was the capacity to understand them. Which is reasonably contiguous with both evolutionary theory and Platonism, in my view.

There's another point, but it's a major argument in its own right, about whether reason can be understood in terms of biological adaptation:

the reason [Dennett] imputes to the human creatures depicted in his book is merely a creaturely reason. Dennett's natural history does not deny reason, it animalizes reason. It portrays reason in service to natural selection, and as a product of natural selection. But if reason is a product of natural selection, then how much confidence can we have in a rational argument for natural selection? The power of reason is owed to the independence of reason, and to nothing else. — Leon Wiesletier

That criticism is also the basic thrust of Plantinga's Evolutionary Argument against Naturalism, and C S Lewis Argument from Reason.

So by that token idealism makes no practical difference to a life lived? — Tom Storm

By no means! Living beings are the way in which meaning enters the universe. Rational sentient beings are those able to realise that.

each individual's first person perspective is unique to oneself. — Wayfarer

That's my intended point. :wink:

By no means! Living beings are the way in which meaning enters the universe. Rational sentient beings are those able to realise that. — Wayfarer

A digression - Where do you sit on the notion that true art criticism/aesthetics should rest on identifying transcendental notions of truth, goodness and beauty which are part of humanity's platonic/idealist heritage?

Back to evolution. If what we take to be the physical world is the product of mentation - can you guess/describe what evolution is 'doing'? Did the single, self-replicating cell begin as nascent consciousness, as part of universal consciousness and eventually develop into full blown meta-cognitive awareness - human sentience? Is such a journey to be seen as purposeful, or simply Schopenhauer's blind will doing its thing? I'm not necessarily asking you to go down Hegel's giest or Bucke's Cosmic Consciousness territory unless you think it apropos.

It's not as if things come into and go out of existence when you or I are looking at them, or not. Existence of the car or the moon or anything else is constituted within our cognition of those objects. Furthermore, they are designated objects by sentient beings. — Wayfarer

Sure, but from your account of idealism are cars, for instance, essentially the product of mentation - even if built from materials and labour that is also mentation expressing itself? They are not physical objects, surely? Idealism being a monist ontology.... Can you say more about this point?

They are designated objects by sentient beings. — Wayfarer

We see objects based on an inherent structure in our consciousness? The 'designation' process interests me.

each individual's first person perspective is unique to oneself.
— Wayfarer

That's what my intended point — Tom Storm

Each perspective is unique, but we're members of the same culture, species, tribe, language group, and so on. So we're unique in one way, but in others ways members of a group. The point being that our experiences are connected with those of others in our milieu, even if we only have first-hand knowledge of our own. (That's why the question 'how are you feeling?' is meaningful :-)

If what we take to be the physical world is the product of mentation - can you guess/describe what evolution is doing? — Tom Storm

On the one hand, the scientific attitude to evolution is non-teleological - evolution in a biological sense refers to nothing more than or other than the propogation of the genome and the evolution of species. To think of it evolving 'towards' anything, or having any particular reason, is rejected as orthogenetic. Of course there are philosophers who say those kinds of things - Henri Bergson was one, nowadays there are those who talk of 'creative evolution' or 'evolutionary enlightenment' but they're not mainstream (although there is a good deal of philosophical ferment in evolutionary biology).

So I suppose the question itself is really a metaphysical question - it's really a form of the question 'what is it all about?' I think natural science as such doesn't really consider such questions. Richard Dawkins, asked that kind of question, said, 'Why we exist, you're playing with the word "why" there. Science is working on the problem of the antecedent factors that lead to our existence. Now, "why" in any further sense than that, why in the sense of purpose is, in my opinion, not a meaningful question. You cannot ask a question like "Why down mountains exist?" as though mountains have some kind of purpose. What you can say is what are the causal factors that lead to the existence of mountains and the same with life and the same with the universe.'

Even so, both Donald Hoffman's work, and Pinter's book, assume an evolutionary stance, in that cognition is understood through the perspective of evolution. Beings have to cognise aspects of their environment in order to survive - even very simple beings. The point about beings is that they are differentiated from the environment, but have to exchange both information (in the form of stimuli) and matter-energy (nutrition) while still maintaining themselves (homeostasis). So in that sense, cognition is present in even the simplest of organisms (there are studies showing that bacteria are capable of learning). So cognition in that sense goes way back to the origin of life itself.

My intuitive belief is that as soon as life begins, there is the incipient development of a perspective, or a germinal subject of experience. Of course in bacteria and so on it's extremely vague and attenuated. So in that sense I'm getting closer to pan-psychism, with the caveat that I don't see consciousness as being at all characteristic of inorganic matter. But I mean, some of the ideas of the German idealists are all quite compatible with these kinds of ideas - not that I'm an expert in them - but Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, Schopenhauer, none of them would be particularly challenged by evolutionary theory (although I'm sure they would be critical of standard-issue neo-darwinian materialism.) (ref)

are cars, for instance, essentially the product of mentation — Tom Storm

I would've thought that pretty non-controversial. If some alien found Elon Musk's sports car sailing through space, it wouldn't see it as a natural phenomenon.

We see objects based on an inherent structure in our consciousness? — Tom Storm

Let’s begin with a thought-experiment: Imagine that all life has vanished from the universe, but everything else is undisturbed. Matter is scattered about in space in the same way as it is now, there is sunlight, there are stars, planets and galaxies—but all of it is unseen. There is no human or animal eye to cast a glance at objects, hence nothing is discerned, recognized or even noticed. Objects in the unobserved universe have no shape, color or individual appearance, because shape and appearance are created by minds. Nor do they have features, because features correspond to categories of animal sensation. This is the way the early universe was before the emergence of life—and the way the present universe is outside the view of any observer.

Pinter, Charles. Mind and the Cosmic Order (p. 1). Springer International Publishing. Kindle Edition.

That also accounts for the regularities we perceive, the fact that we all seem to see the same things. Hegel discussed that. 'Like Kant, Hegel believed that we do not perceive the world or anything in it directly and that all our minds have access to is ideas of the world—images, perceptions, concepts. For Kant and Hegel, the only reality we know is a virtual reality. — Wayfarer

This is not exacyly true. Hegel rejects Kant's noumena as fiction and says Spirit, which is us, is noumena

"even among the most committed absolute idealists of the nineteenth century it is not always clear whether they are actually denying the existence of matter or only subordinating it to mind in one way or another)." https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/idealism/#IdeaEarlModeRati

(italics mine)

With Hegel I am sure it is the latter. Although he says that all is mind and we are all reality, this is through connection to Spirit and he explicitly rejects Berkeley in the first part of his Logic and says the world is real and concrete. He just thinks that thought is even more real and concrete. I am not as familiar with Schelling, Fitche, or Schopenhaur however

It puzzles me why you think idealism is challenged by the existence of any sensible thing or process. You must have failed properly to have grasped the theory.

Can you paint? I ask because if you paint you view the world as sensations rather than as objects.

Can you paint? I ask because if you paint you view the world as sensations rather than as objects. — Bartricks

But then I'd wonder about the chemical makeup of paint, and the atomic structure of the canvas.

It puzzles me why you think idealism is challenged by the existence of any sensible thing or process. — "Bartricks

Many of those things exist outside of human experience much of the time, if not entirely, and are the explanations for the world we experience. We don't perceive atoms (unless when viewed with an electron microscope), but atomic bods are the explanation for chemistry, and chemistry for the experience of ordinary matter and it's many forms and behaviors.

So no doubt COVID, or falling off a cliff for that matter, are representations of something happening in consciousness when viewed from a particular perspective. — Tom Storm

But COVID isn't just the symptoms people experience, it's the explanation for the pandemic, and why millions have died. It's also not just the experience of falling off a cliff, but what happens when you hit the bottom.

How does the idealist explain the end of their experience when hitting the bottom or dying from an infection? Because someone else comes along and has an experience of their death? So why does an idealist's experience come to an end? It can't be a material cause such as an invisible virus or the rocks at the bottom.