They can exist without our minds. — DingoJones

But can they exist without any mind.

But can they exist without any mind. — Nils Loc

Why wouldnt they?

So velocity is weight in your understanding? — Terrapin Station

No it’s a physical atttibute. Physical entities have such attributes - mass, location, and so on. Abstract entities, including numbers, do not, because they’re not physical. But they’re real nonetheless, because they’re the same for any observer.
You never did ‘explain your view’ because it’s self-contradictory and it can’t be explained, as it desn’t make sense.

But music is not the thing you are sensing, — Metaphysician Undercover

lol. You are really off your rocker.

T-shirts are as categorically abstract as clothes, as trees are to matter when talking about abstracting properties from sense experience. We experience none as they truly are a part from mind, so their existence depends upon mind (any mind, including a mind that might transcend conventional mind, like a network of minds as mind). They aren't really anything besides what we perceive them to be, which includes the fundamentally or functionally pragmatic imposed categories of experience. — Nils Loc

It might be worth talking to someone who isn't as trollish, confused or insane as Metaphysician Undercover. What I said above about this was:

"How do we get to the point of saying that matter is an idea?

"You know, so phenomenally, there's a tree say (not as a 'tree'--that is, the concept, etc.--but 'that thing'--I have to call it something to type this), and then how do we go from that to saying that the phenomenal tree is an idea?"

You never did ‘explain your view’ because it’s self-contradictory and it can’t be explained, as it desn’t make sense. — Wayfarer

First off, this means that you weren't really paying attention. All you'd have to do is repeat back what I said, even if you think it's contradictory or doesn't make sense.

You asked about weight. So I answered about weight. It doesn't really make sense to talk about a theory's weight, just like it doesn't really make sense to talk about the wind's weight, or it wouldn't make sense to talk about the weight of your circulation. That doesn't imply that the wind or your circulation aren't physical.

The theory of relativity obviously has physical attributes. It's a set of dynamic states in any number of brains. Those have physical attributes.

And nothing is the same for multiple observers.

Simply ignoring what I say isn't actually an argument against it, even though you'll act like it is, and I'm sure we'll go through more or less this same exchange many times again in the future.

Suppose you have a book of gibberish that could be a possible language if you had an interpretive structure (a decryption key). If the key no longer exists to decode information (the language) then the information no longer exists. Information stands in relation to the decryption key in the same way as the world stands in relation to the mind.

I would say that the information does still exist, it just exists in an encrypted state.

Their existence is in our perception of them.

If trees are matter, then you sense matter all the time, right? (Well, assuming you often encounter trees.) — Terrapin Station

Let's try this from another angle that a 'dead head' can handle ;)
Can you please tell me what is matter? Then tell me what is a tree and then what is a mind.

If we can get these definitions accomplished we might be able to make some progress.

Suppose you have a book of gibberish that could be a possible language if you had an interpretive structure (a decryption key). If the key no longer exists to decode information (the language) then the information no longer exists. Information stands in relation to the decryption key in the same way as the world stands in relation to the mind. — Nils Loc

But idealists are saying that the book of gibberish IS itself the decryption key, that it was essentially just an illusion that it was something else; it's not something different than the decryption key.

I would say that the information does still exist, it just exists in an encrypted state. — DingoJones

The same information could have many encryption keys but the only encryption key that makes the information relevant (gives it a conditioned existence so to speak) is the one you have (ie. mind).

The idea of the physical is, among other things, the idea of radical, brute separation of all things from one another, whereas the idea of the mental is the idea of the deep inherent interconnection of all things.

So, if the substance is mental then all things are really one, and if the substance is physical then all things are separate and if interdependent are only so on account of quantifiable mechanical, energetic connections with one another.

lol. You are really off your rocker. — Terrapin Station

Please remember the principle of charity, it is far more likely that either Metaphysician is failing to explain the point or that you are failing to understand it than Metaphysician being insane.

Until now he / she has made the most relevant posts in this thread and seems to have a superior understanding of the subject than most.

he idea of the physical is, among other things, the idea of radical, brute separation of all things from one another, whereas the idea of the mental is the idea of the deep inherent interconnection of all things. — Janus

Locke separates, see's and uses words as symbols. Berkeley unites, listens and uses language to express much more than symbols.

Can you please tell me what is matter?Then tell me what is a tree and then what is a mind.

If we can get these definitions accomplished we might be able to make some progress. — Jamesk

Matter--substances consisting of subatomic particles, which combine to make atoms, which combine to make molecules, etc. in various structures of gases, liquids, solids, plasmas, and Bose-Einstein condensates. Matter has mass, spatial extension, charge, etc. Matter is always engaged in some processes, too, some changing relations with respect to other matter.

Trees are particular combinations of molecules, undergoing particular processes. Hence, trees are matter.

Mind is particular subsets of brain structure and function. Brains, of course, are composed of particular molecules undergoing particular processes, too--many different materials than trees, but materials nonetheless.

Please remember the principle of charity, it is far more likely that either Metaphysician is failing to explain the point or that you are failing to understand it than Metaphysician being insane. — Jamesk

What are you basing this likelihood on?

By the way, if that's the problem, then what he and other folks in the same boat need to dos pause for a moment, step back, take a breath, drop the arrogance, and try tackling much smaller, simpler bits at a time.

To elaborate further; the idea of a universal physical substance makes no sense; what would it be? Energy? If it were then how would things further apart than the distance light could have travelled since the beginning of the universe be connected and be governed by the same laws?

A universal mental substance would be mind; which is the very principal of deep and universal interconnection.

So there is certainly a profound difference between idealist and physicalist views.

The idea of the physical is, among other things, the idea of radical, brute separation of all things from one another, whereas the idea of the mental is the idea of the deep inherent interconnection of all things — Janus

Where are you getting that idea from?

A universal mental substance would be mind; which is the very principal of deep and universal interconnection. — Janus

Why is the "mind" alternative simply left unexplained?

From my mind where else? What's the problem?

The problem is that I don't know if it coheres very well with anyone's view about physical stuff.

Because such a principle of universal entanglement cannot be modeled in the mechanical way the physical world is modeled. The mind is what does the modeling.

So it just doesn't need any explaining then?

Physicalists may or may not realize it, but it is the logical conclusion of the physicalist paradigm.

Can you show your work re the claim that that is the logical conclusion?

It cannot be explained in the kind of physicalist terms you are asking for; else it would be...physical. So that demand begs the question.

If it's a logical conclusion, then there's a chain of logical inferences, logical implication for it, right? Otherwise, what is the word "logic" referring to?

The same information could have many encryption keys but the only encryption key that makes the information relevant (gives it a conditioned existence so to speak) is the one you have (ie. mind). — Nils Loc

Yes, but relevent and existing are not the same thing.

If all things are merely physical then what would be the universal principle that determines that physical laws obtain everywhere, even across regions that cannot be energetically connected due to the immense distance separating them?