But the philosophical point is that this doesn’t capture what time is, as in some fundamental way, it is lived. That is the sense in which it is still observer dependent. — Wayfarer

I don't think there is anything more to capture. My view is that mappings or couplings between us and reality are sufficient to pick out "stuff" or ontologies. Time is just a relation we can pick out. And sure, we have subjective sense of time, we may have different time systems, but people have worked together to corroberate these things between them so that we have a time that is "objective", certainly a bit more than intersubjective. And when we look at how relativity changes things, it is not a matter of subjectivity - reference frames are "objective".

From my perspective, "intrinsic properties" of stuff devoid of structure not only are inarticulable but don't really make sense. If something is to be a thing, it out to be a "difference that makes a difference". If it cannot make a difference to other things, and so in principle cannot even be perceived by myself, then its difficult to see in what sense that fits into reality or should be considered as part of reality. To say that there is a fundamental way time is that cannot be captured by any perception then doesn't make sense to me.

Bayesian inference says we should update our models only as much as we need to given the evidence, but if there is no evidence because we are talking about something that cannot make a difference, then why should I change anything about my view?
I can conceptualize the idea that there are things I cannot see right now, but I don't see why there should be a change in properties of objects when I am not looking at them compared to the information I gain were I to measure them in some way, whether through my own perceptions or some experimental device. And one would have to assume there is a change, because it seems to me that you are saying that there is no possible way to perceive the way time or anything else is, so there is no way one could even exhaust the ways of looking at something and find out what it is like fundamentally.

Bergson’s insight was that clocks don’t measure time; we do. What we call “objective time” (e.g., seconds, hours, spacetime intervals) depends on our ability to synthesize change into a unified experience. — Wayfarer

Okay, clocks don't measure objective time, they measure schm-ime. I can then do a separate study on actual (subjective) time and the cognition of our perception of it, possible cognitive mechanisms that are undergirded by neural mechanisms which can be related to schm-ime since they are physical. I can integrate time and schm-ime into the same view of the world, neither have to be wrong.

Without someone to whom change occurs as change, your "objective time" is just an uninterpreted sequence of events with no temporal character. — Wayfarer

Bit schm-ime doesn't have a temporal character because its not time.I don't need time to have a model of the physical world with schm-ime in it. Obviously my model of the physical world is something used and done by person with experiences and who experiences time, and tjeyir direct experiences of the world involve their subjective time. But their subjective time is not the contents of the model of physical time which can be used to make predictions, just as their subjective time has nothing to do with sabermetrics, even though they may be experiencing time when watching a baseball game or doing sabermetric calculations.

The fact that I have a subjective awareneaa doean't necessarily refute what my models do and the fact that they can make predictions which bear fruit. I trivially need experiences to experience that fruit that is beared, but if humans can construct models and ways to examine those models and their empirical consequences in ways that are not changed by subjective experiences (in virtue of experiential subjectivity), then in what sense do they depend on the subjective. I see things through subjective experience, but there are things I see that can be mapped to events that occur can regardless of whether I am there to see them. If there is a fundamental way those things are that cannot ever be known to me in principle then that doesn't make much sense to me.

The title of this thread—“Does anybody really support mind-independent reality?”—is precisely the issue. You seem to be assuming that we’ve already answered that question in the affirmative by default, and that everything else is just subjective garnish (“schm-ime”). But the whole point of this discussion is to ask: what do we mean by the “reality” that is supposedly 'mind-independent', and does it make sense without reference to a subject? That’s not a scientific question—it’s a philosophical one. I think there's a real distinction to be made.

I trivially need experiences to experience that fruit that is beared, but if humans can construct models and ways to examine those models and their empirical consequences in ways that are not changed by subjective experiences (in virtue of experiential subjectivity), then in what sense do they depend on the subjective. — Apustimelogist

You say you “trivially need experiences to experience the fruit that is beared,” but that’s actually the core issue. It’s not just that we need experience to observe outcomes—experience is the condition for building, interpreting, and validating any model at all.

Scientific models may not change based on individual subjectivity, but their entire framework—measurement, comparison, meaning—depends on the shared structures of cognition. That’s not a scientific claim; it’s a philosophical one. You can’t eliminate the subject without also eliminating the possibility of modeling anything in the first place.

But, if we agree that you do support the idea of a mind-independent reality, then perhaps we can leave it at that.

You seem to be assuming that we’ve already answered that question — Wayfarer

No, I offered that if we can produce concepts that don't seem to subjectively vary (e.g. the ticking of a clock), then is that not mind-independent?

Dependence means that things co-vary. So if something is mind-dependent, it co-varies with the state of your subjective state of mind (withstanding you representing or seeing it). If something does not co-vary with that, then surely it is mind-independent; for instance, the location of Paris. You can see something with your mind, but if it doesn't co-vary with arbitrary states of your mind, then I don't see that as a good definition of mind-dependence. Sure, different animals have different perceptual capabilities, but arguably they are picking up slightly different facets of information in reality; maybe, there could be a case for mind-dependence in some way for some of these things (is a di-chromacy vs trichromacy mind-dependence, or is it more analogous to how some animals have better visual resolution than others and so can pick out more details or fine-grained structure that others cannot?). But I don't think the location of Paris and various other things we can corroborate together satisfy that.

You say you “trivially need experiences to experience the fruit that is beared,” but that’s actually the core issue. It’s not just that we need experience to observe outcomes—experience is the condition for building, interpreting, and validating any model at all. — Wayfarer

To me, this is like saying a photo on a piece of paper doesn't capture information about reality because it is on paper. But surely, regardless of the medium, if the image is faithfully captures or maps to parts of reality, then it doesn't matter.

Dependence means that things co-vary. So if something is mind-dependent, it co-varies with the state of your subjective state of mind (withstanding you representing or seeing it). — Apustimelogist

It depends on mind in a different way to that. A thought-experiment I have posed is: imagine that mountains were consciously aware. A mountain has a life-span of hundreds of millions of years. To a mountain, human beings would be imperceptible, because their life spans are so minute as to be incomprehensible. You wouldn't be aware of a Mallory or a Hillary. Glaciers, you might recognise, as they'd be around long enough to register and carve canyons in your flanks. At the other end of the scale, imagine an intelligent microbe. Its entire lifespan of one human hour might be spent inside the internal organs of a larger creature. Again, it would have no conception of the scale or time-span that constitute that creature's life (like the flea who says 'I don't think I believe there's a dog' :razz: )

As for the photograph, it represents something to you because you know what a likeness is, you know what it means, and what it has captured, and that it is representative. But physically, it is not the reality it represents, it is plastics and polymers. The ability to reproduce the image depends on the technology of inkjet printers but the interpretation is dependent on your mind.

I get how difficult this is. I think this passage from Bryan Magee captures the difficulty many of us have in grasping what’s at stake in transcendental idealism. It helps explain why the view seems so implausible at first—but also why it deserves patient attention:

This, incidentally, illustrates a difficulty in the way of understanding which transcendental idealism has permanently to contend with: the assumptions of 'the inborn realism which arises from the original disposition of the intellect' enter unawares into the way in which the statements of transcendental idealism are understood, so that these statements appear faulty in ways in which, properly understood, they are not. Such realistic assumptions so pervade our normal use of concepts that the claims of transcendental idealism disclose their own non-absurdity only after difficult consideration, whereas criticisms of them at first appear cogent which on examination are seen to rest on confusion. We have to raise almost impossibly deep levels of presupposition in our own thinking and imagination to the level of self-consciousness before we are able to achieve a critical awareness of all our realistic assumptions, and thus achieve an understanding of transcendental idealism which is untainted by them. This, of course, is one of the explanations for the almost unfathomably deep counterintuitiveness of transcendental idealism, and also for the general notion of 'depth' with which people associate Kantian and post-Kantian philosophy. Something akin to it is the reason for much of the prolonged, self-disciplined meditation involved in a number of Eastern religious practices. — Bryan Magee, Schopenhauer's Philosophy, p106

It depends on mind in a different way to that. — Wayfarer

In what way? I am nit sure what the thought experiment conveys.

But physically, it is not the reality it represents, it is plastics and polymers. — Wayfarer

But this is trivial, no one expects that information about something has to be the same as that thing. That doesn't really make sense, it undermines the whole notion of knowledge, belief, epistemics, etc.

The ability to reproduce the image — Wayfarer

This should be the point: the image can be reproduced on different mediums. Regardless of these mediums you cna probably get a machine or AI to read the same information off of it because the image is the same on different media. The image needs to be put on a media, but the media doesn't change the image, or it is not necesdarily the case that it does, it seems to me.

I am nit sure what the thought experiment conveys. — Apustimelogist

You said, 'So if something is mind-dependent, it co-varies with the state of your subjective state of mind.' The 'mountain' thought experiment shows how one's sense of reality is dependent on the kind of mind. Hence, mind-dependent.

The image needs to be put on a media, but the media doesn't change the image, or it is not necesdarily the case that it does, it seems to me. — Apustimelogist

Right - one of the points that I often make, which is the symbolic or representational or semantic level is separable from the physical.

You said, 'So if something is mind-dependent, it co-varies with the state of your subjective state of mind.' The 'mountain' thought experiment shows how one's sense of reality is dependent on the kind of mind. Hence, mind-dependent. — Wayfarer

I would argue that these reflrct how a system might be sensitive to different information, like how some animals see at greater resolution and detail than others.

But the point at issue is, whether time is real independently of any scale or perspective. So a 'mountains' measurement of time will be vastly different from the 'human' measurement of time.

Sensory information doesn't really come into it. Clearly we have different cognitive systems to other animals, but the question of the nature of time is not amenable to sensory perception.

Anyway - I can see we're going around in circles at this point, so I will leave it at that. Thanks for your comments.

I’m not sure that Apustimelogist doesn’t understand transcendental idealism. But rather he’s continually testing it from a positivist standpoint. But I don’t think that gap can necessarily be bridged. Because the positivist says I can measure, test, observe, recognise, describe etc the world we are in and if there is anything else to it, show it to me so I can measure it? If you can’t, then why should I accept that it is there at all?
Also that I have all the understanding etc that I need to do my thinking already in the world I am experiencing already. So all this philosophising about the logic of considering idealism is just a thought experiment, a tongue twister, nothing more.

So I don’t think this is an exercise in getting someone to understand the other’s point of view, necessarily. They may well understand it well enough already, but rather an exercise in explaining away the gap which needs bridging between the two opposing views. To build so many bridges that the gap is imperceptible any more, or that the gap is nothing more than a wrinkle in a whole and that there isn’t really a gap.

I like thought experiments and your mountain experiment works well for me. Another way of seeing it is from the standpoint of life as a whole, rather than the mountain, as one unit, all life as one being.

So all life is one entity, or being and in the world we find ourselves in, this being is budded, or cloned into millions of parts, or sub-beings. Which we see as all the living organisms on the planet. Each sub-being experiences the world differently depending on which part, or portion of the being they are. So an ant, experiences the world differently to a bat for example.

Now this being might be the origin of both those sub-beings and all that they experience, indeed the world might be a facet of that being which is experienced as a physical world of experiences through a process of becoming. A process of becoming a mind, which then experiences the world that it is budded into.

The world these sub-beings experience isn’t an externally existing world of physical objects, external to the greater being, but a product, or projection of that being, experienced differently by the different classes of sub-being. Mind and the world mind experiences, may be two sides of the one coin of being a being and all part of the one being. Time and extension(space and material), are produced from and by the being.


This thought experiment opens a bridge to understand how the physical world may be a “projection” of mind, and not external, while appearing to be.

Thankyou :pray:

We have to raise almost impossibly deep levels of presupposition in our own thinking and imagination to the level of self-consciousness before we are able to achieve a critical awareness of all our realistic assumptions, and thus achieve an understanding of transcendental idealism which is untainted by them. — Bryan Magee, Schopenhauer's Philosophy, p106

“….If, then, we learn nothing more by this critical examination than what we should have practised in the merely empirical use of the understanding, without any such subtle inquiry, the presumption is that the advantage we reap from it is not worth the labour bestowed upon it….”
(A237/B296)

‘Such subtle enquiry’, indeed.

It’s interesting to consider how much we don’t know, while seeming to know a lot. Indeed what we do know is tiny compared to what we don’t. But it’s easy to remain blind to what we don’t know and just accept what we do know as what there is, or even all there is.

It’s interesting to consider how much we don’t know, while seeming to know a lot. Indeed what we do know is tiny compared to what we don’t. But it’s easy to remain blind to what we don’t know and just accept what we do know as what there is, or even all there is. — Punshhh

How do we know how much we don't know?

Isn't it possible to doubt what we do know even though what we do know is true? Isn't it possible to over-think things? Reality could just as easily be simpler than we think. It is our ignorance and the need to flaunt one's imaginative use of language that allows us to imagine the world as more complex than it could actually be.

When we reach some conclusion we often realize how simple it is. It is only in our ignorance that it seems complex.

Yes, reality could be very simple and yet we don’t know it. We could be staring it in the face and still not have a clue. Maybe we know it, but not with our mind, but rather with our body, being.

But the point at issue is, whether time is real independently of any scale or perspective. So a 'mountains' measurement of time will be vastly different from the 'human' measurement of time.

Sensory information doesn't really come into it. Clearly we have different cognitive systems to other animals, but the question of the nature of time is not amenable to sensory perception. — Wayfarer

I don't really see any merit in what you're saying. At the end of the day, we have clocks. At the end of the day, things happen when you no one is looking that seem to behave according to scientific theories which have clocks. At the end of the day, clocks help people co-ordinate actual behavior and activities all over the world. At the end of the day, subjects like history, paleontology many others only make sense when clocks work like they should. At the end of the day, people can have different units of time or find different scales time relevant for different activities but clocks still work and they don't appear to be subjective. Clocks are even relevant to subjective time since subjective time is due to brains whose neurons behave in ways which rely on the timing of processes as measurable by clocks. But we don't need to over-conflate subjective time and what clocks do.

But the point at issue is, whether time is real independently of any scale or perspective. So a 'mountains' measurement of time will be vastly different from the 'human' measurement of time.

Sensory information doesn't really come into it. Clearly we have different cognitive systems to other animals, but the question of the nature of time is not amenable to sensory perception.

Anyway - I can see we're going around in circles at this point, so I will leave it at that. Thanks for your comments. — Wayfarer

What do you mean by a mountain's measurement of time, if not sensory information?

You talk as if the mountain of your imagination has a flicker fusion threshold, but a flicker fusion threshold is a characteristic of sensory systems.

What do you mean by a mountain's measurement of time, if not sensory information? — wonderer1

It is a 'thought experiment' intended to impart the idea that the concept of time is inextricably linked to the subjective system of the relevant beings. Of course mountains don't perceive time or anything else for that matter. (I can see why you refer to that 'flicker fusion' idea.)

It is a 'thought experiment' intended to impart the idea that the concept of time is inextricably linked to the subjective system of the relevant beings. Of course mountains don't perceive time or anything else for that matter. (I can see why you refer to that 'flicker fusion' idea.) — Wayfarer

Do mountains change?

Does it take time to process sensory information? Is processing sensory information a type of change?

There is change and then there is the measurement of change, which is time. The rate at which our brains process sensory information would be relative to the change occurring in other processes, so the way we perceive other change would be relative to the rate at which we process sensory information. Slowly changing processes would appears as solid, static "objects" and faster processes would appear as actual processes, and even faster processes would be blurs of motion, or possibly not perceivable at all.

Sorry for the late reply. Unfortunately, I am quite busy right now, so I don't think that I'll be able to continue the conversation for a while. I just answer to some of your points.

How does your panspychism and idealism differ? — Apustimelogist

Well, as I understand it, ontological idealism asserts that the 'mental' is the fundamental reality. It is generally used to denote the position that only minds and mental contents are real. If the 'fundamental' is understood in a weaker sense, however it certainly tends to include some views that aren't traditionally included in 'idealism' (for instance neoplatonism, theisms and so on) because they still allow the 'material' to be real.

IMO the 'intelligibility' of reality tells us that there is a structural correspondence between the 'mental' and the 'physical' and this means at least that the 'mental' is always a 'potentiality' in the 'physical', which would strongly suggest panpsychism.

On the other hand, I do believe however that intelligibility actually tells us something more. The 'physical' has an order, a structure that can be grasped by reason because the fundamental level of reality is 'mental'. The 'hard problem' might be a hint in this direction as it seems to suggest that consciousness cannot be explained in purely 'physical' terms.

Now, of course, I don't pretend to be able to explain how the 'physical' has 'emerged' from the 'mental', but what we have said about intelligibility, meaning and so on of the physical world suggests to me that an 'idealist' is right.

IMO if one accepts that the 'mental' is fundamental, one adopts either a (broadly) 'ontological idealist' view or something like panpsychism.

Anyway, I admit that this hardly convinces, especially someone like you who says:

This would make me commit more than I wish and it seems to suggest some kind of ontology that I would like to see scientifically backed-up, which I don't think is the case. — Apustimelogist

Note that I appreciate your perspective. It is right to be skeptical in the sense that it is right to be open to revise one's thoughts. But I think that there are two things to consider here. First, maybe science isn't the only valid way of knowing 'reality'. Second, even if these speculations cannot give us knowledge, they might still be 'reasonable' and some may be better than others. Of course, if one doesn't accepts these two possibilities, then one has no motive to pursue anything else except science in the quest of knowledge.

I would say I allow realism but in a thinner, looser, more deflationary sense of a consistent mapping or coupling to the outside world without requiring much more than that. When those mappings become systematically erroneous, we might, it then becomes possible to conceptualize them as not real. But I do not think there are systematic, tractable, context-independent nor infallible ways of deciding what is real or not real. And I think people all the time have "knowledge" which is some sense false or not real but persists in how they interact with the world due to ambiguity. — Apustimelogist

Ok. To me this confirms that you endorse a skeptical form of 'realism', i.e. you accept the existence of an independent reality but you are agnostic about its 'nature' and that you are skeptic about the possibility of knowing it except the patterns we can know via scientific investigation (which include the patterns we can know by our perceptions).

I agree that our perception gives us direct access to the external world but not in itself, and I reject the rest.
(On second thought….our perception is how the external world has direct access to us. The first makes it seem like we go out to it, when in fact it comes in to us.) — Mww

Ok, thanks! But both the formulations IMO are valid inside Kantianism and related epistemologies. In a sense, the 'representation' is the manifestation of the 'external world', 'how the external world has access to us'. In another way, however, it is also a 'representation' something that has an irreducible 'subjective pole', to mutuate an expression that uses @Wayfarer.

In effect, and to make a long story short….we tell things what they are. All they gotta do, is show up. — Mww

Ok! Again, a very good way to sum up transcendental idealism, thanks.

As I said in other posts, gradually I came to believe that the intelligibility is not something that is due to the ordaining faculties of sensibility and intellect. Rather, the very fact that we can't conceive an unintelligible external reality suggests to me that intelligibility is an essential feature even of physical reality, which implies that either there is a fundamental mental aspect of reality or that fundamental reality is mental.

I still think that transcendental idealism provides us some truths but, ultimately, I believe that it also fails to explain why reality appears/manifests the way it appears/manifests. Of course, I don't think that transcendental idealists ever claimed to explain this. But for me this means that TI is incomplete (I admit that this is not a decisive argument).

Direct realist asserts that our perceptions give us direct access to the external world in itself and we can know how the world is independent on the mental representations.

Or, as seems to be more common in my experience, "direct realism" denies a metaphysics of "representation" as well as knowledge of things "in-themselves" as a coherent "gold standard" of knowledge. They often favor the triadic semiotic relationship over a diadic notion of representation, and to the extent they embrace some form of "mental representation," these are not, primarily, "what we know," but rather "how we know."

In high scholastic terminology for instance, the idea is more "how things exist in us in the manner of an art," (i.e., our capacity for reproduction, as the form of a statue is in a sculptor before he sculpts) as opposed to being primarily objects or principles of knowledge.

Aristotle would say that sensation is "of" the interaction between the environmental medium (which interacts with the object perceived) and the sense organs, but that it carries the intelligible form of what is perceived. Sensation is always, in a sense, immediate, not in the imagination. This leads to very different conclusions.

Two scholastic adages are influential here:

A. "Everything is received in the mode of the receiver" (and this is as true for how salt interacts with water as for how we interact with an apple when seeing it)—this dictum becomes totalizing and absolutized in modern "critical philosophy" in a way that direct realists tend to find problematic and indirect realists tend to find unavoidable.

B. "Act follows on being." Only natural things' interactions with other things make them epistemically accessible (or at all interesting). Hence, the gold standard of knowledge is not knowledge of things "as they are in themselves,' (which would be sterile and useless) but rather "things as they interact with everything any anything else."

So, the Neo-Scholastic view tends to be to reject the underlying assumptions that lead to "critical philosophy," but it's worth noting that these principles have also influenced (or been rediscovered by) other camps. The semiotic camp grows out of scholasticism but is, in some outgrowths, quite estranged from its original heritage. Process philosophy tends to lean heavily on B, but this seems to me to be largely a case of convergent evolution in ideas.

The "metaphysics of appearance" are probably key here to. If act always comes before potency, i.e. if some prior actuality must always activate some power (e.g. sight), then any sensible appearance (i.e. the activation of a sense power) must correspond to some prior actuality. Hence, appearances, while they might be deceiving, are never arbitrarily related to reality. All appearances reveal something of being (they are really the way it appears).

Perhaps this is a bigger point than direct versus indirect. I am not sure if mediation really matters that much. Lots of pre-critical philosophy of perception and "metaphysics of knowledge" involves mediation. But it's a "direct" mediation in that it ties back to some determinant prior actuality (form). A thing's eidos is its form which is also its image, its interactions vis-á-vis everything else.

In high scholastic terminology for instance, the idea is more "how things exist in us in the manner of an art," (i.e., our capacity for reproduction, as the form of a statue is in a sculptor before he sculpts) as opposed to being primarily objects or principles of knowledge. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Does this mean that the content of our knowledge are images of 'things' which are nevertheless intrinsic properties of things? If that is the case, 'direct' realism would be 'a middle position' between 'naive' and 'indirect' realism. That is, we can know something of external things but we can't know all their intrinsic properties. But this also means that concepts/forms are something essential even of the 'external' or even 'physical' reality.

Aristotle would say that sensation is "of" the interaction between the environmental medium (which interacts with the object perceived) and the sense organs, but that it carries the intelligible form of what is perceived. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Ok, yes. The intellect grasps the intelligible form of what is perceived. Doesn't this imply, however, that we are directly acquainted with something essential to the external things as they are (i.e. things-in-themselves)? In other words, we have a partial yet genuine knowledge of 'things as they are'.

A. "Everything is received in the mode of the receiver" (and this is as true for how salt interacts with water as for how we interact with an apple when seeing it)—this dictum becomes totalizing and absolutized in modern "critical philosophy" in a way that direct realists tend to find problematic and indirect realists tend to find unavoidable. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Ok. While the modern 'critical philosophy' says that the sensibility and intellect ordain the representation and 'dictate' how things appear to us, the 'scholastic' here says that the intellect recognizes the forms it can recognize. Is that right?

B. "Act follows on being." Only natural things' interactions with other things make them epistemically accessible (or at all interesting). Hence, the gold standard of knowledge is not knowledge of things "as they are in themselves,' (which would be sterile and useless) but rather "things as they interact with everything any anything else." — Count Timothy von Icarus

Ok but I'm not sure how this avoids to assert that we know something of the 'things in themselves'. After all, forms seem to be intrinsic to things. But on the other hand, the knowledge is partial in the sense that we can't know everything about something external.

Perhaps this is a bigger point than direct versus indirect. I am not sure if mediation really matters that much. Lots of pre-critical philosophy of perception and "metaphysics of knowledge" involves mediation. But it's a "direct" mediation in that it ties back to some determinant prior actuality (form). A thing's eidos is its form which is also its image, its interactions vis-á-vis everything else. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Ok. If, however, the 'eidos'/'forms' of physical things are the images that are 'recognizable' by the intellect, it seems that there is a 'likeness' between the 'physical' and the 'mental'. How is this explainable?

A possible explanation is that something 'mental' is the fundamental reality. If that is the case, then, the 'external reality' can be said to be both independent and dependent from 'mind'. Independent from our minds - we merely recognize 'forms'. But not independent from the 'fundamental mind' or 'fudamental mental aspect' of reality. So, as I said in my previous post, this leads to either to some form of panpsychism or of 'ontological idealism' in a broad sense.

Epistemic idealists would argue that 'forms' are something that our minds impose on the 'external world' in order to give a structure to experience. I guess that it's partially true. However, the problem of such a view is that it doesn't explain why the mind would ordain in such a way. Even if it is said that such a 'structuring' is done because it is useful, it nevertheless seems to me that it leaves the issue unresolved: why is it useful?
The epistemic idealist would retort that we can't be certain that forms 'really' exist 'out there'. But it does seem reasonable to assume that.

Not really, we all duck when the baseball is speeding at our head.
We all look both ways before we step out into the street.
People profess various forms of pure idealism but no one lives it.
If they did they would not survive long.

Straw man description of idealism. Idealists don’t believe the world is all in the mind.

Well, it's not that simple.

Even in the most strict forms of ontological idealism, the scenario you have to imagine is something like a shared dream, where each subject interacts with others. So, there is an 'external' world relative of each subject and the subject interacts with that external world - and this interaction can be a cause of harm.

What this kind of idealist deny is that there is something beyond minds and mental contents (thoughts, sensations and so on).

I personally don't subscribe to such a view but I think it is a disservice to say it is equivalent to solipsism (or something like that) without giving a good argument for saying that such a view actually implies solipsism.

Straw man description of idealism. Idealists don’t believe the world is all in the mind. — Wayfarer

What this kind of idealist deny is that there is something beyond minds and mental contents (thoughts, sensations and so on). — boundless

So what form of idealism is being promoted? What does this form of idealism have to say about cosmology (14 billion year old universe, 5 billion year old solar system and all the time before advanced or organized minds existed?) Or even the process of evolution. I just can't see how the notion that everything is just minds and mental contents, survives the modern scientific view of the world we live in.?

I just can't see how the notion that everything is just minds and mental contents, survives the modern scientific view of the world we live in — prothero

I've written an OP on it, The Mind-Created World. Here, I'll point out that the empirical facts to which you refer, and which science discloses, are themselves inextricably related to human concepts of time, space and measurement. If you were to subtract the conceptual framework within which the 'modern scientific view of the world' is meaningful, nothing would remain.

The very idea of science from the usual point of view is to take out everything to do with human subjectivity and see what remains. QBism says, if you take everything out of quantum theory to do with human subjectivity, then nothing remains ~ Christian Fuchs

‘Surely “the world” is what is there all along, what is there anyway, regardless of whether you perceive it or not! Science has shown that h. sapiens only evolved in the last hundred thousand years or so, and we know Planet Earth is billions of years older than that! So how can you say that the mind ‘‘creates the world”’?

...I am not disputing the scientific account, but attempting to reveal an underlying assumption that gives rise to a distorted view of what this means. What I’m calling attention to is the tendency to take for granted the reality of the world as it appears to us, without taking into account the role the mind plays in its constitution. This oversight imbues the phenomenal world — the world as it appears to us — with a kind of inherent reality that it doesn’t possess. This in turn leads to the over-valuation of objectivity as the sole criterion for truth.

By ‘creating reality’, I’m referring to the way the brain receives, organises and integrates cognitive data, along with memory and expectation, so as to generate the unified world–picture within which we situate and orient ourselves. And although the unified nature of our experience of this ‘world-picture’ seems simple and even self-evident, neuroscience has yet to understand or explain how the disparate elements of experience , memory, expectation and judgement, all come together to form a unified whole — even though this is plainly what we experience¹ .

By investing the objective domain with a mind-independent status, as if it exists independently of any mind, we absolutize it. We designate it as truly existent, irrespective of and outside any knowledge of it. This gives rise to a kind of cognitive disorientation which underlies many current philosophical conundrums. — The Mind Created World