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 you hit the bottom. — Marchesk

As I said, I am not an idealist, but - the point being that everything humans experience is simply mind when viewed from a particular perspective. Chemicals, brains, atoms are all visual representations of mental processes. We use these 'dashboard' images to negotiate our apparent world. Idealists don't necessarily say they have an explanation of death other than your particular discrete experience of consciousness ends.

It can't be a material cause such as an invisible virus or the rocks at the bottom. — Marchesk

You're not there yet. Idealist Bernardo Kastrup would say that a virus and rocks are not matter - they are visual representations of mental processes. Consciousness has it's own risks and hazards which are represented to us as material things.

I get that. I'm saying that it's odd that we have all those visual representations of mental processes that are said to be explanations for our experiences, such as getting sick, neuroscience, evolution, star formation and death.

I'm saying that it's odd that we have all those visual representations of mental processes that are said to be explanations for our experiences, such as getting sick, neuroscience, evolution, star formation and death. — Marchesk

Of course it's odd. An idealist might argue that we have centuries of thinking that the material world is a pure representation of reality.

Of course it's odd. An idealist might argue that we have centuries of thinking that the material world is a pure representation of reality. — Tom Storm

I'm not a materialist (solely) because of consciousness and abstract objects, but the the problem with idealism in the modern world, is our scientific explanations start with the material and build to the mental once you get to biology and brain processes. So the idealist is put in the awkward position of explaining why the material representation has mind as a latter development on brains, surrounded by a universe of mostly physical things and processes, where mind is a relative late comer, one that we only know about in one little corner of the cosmos.

IOW, why does the world appear to be mostly physical?

So the idealist is put in the awkward position of explaining why the material representation has mind as a latter development on brains, surrounded by a universe of mostly physical things and processes, where mind is a relative late comer, one that we only know about in one little corner of the cosmos. — Marchesk

That's not really an issue for some idealists. They postulate that consciousness - something like a universal mind - preexists all.

IOW, why does the world appear to be mostly physical? — Marchesk

We regard it as psychical.

Here's Kastrup summarizing his model - it's a snippet from his vast output on the matter (no pun intended). From an essay called The Unexpected Origin of Matter.

First of all, let us immediately acknowledge the empirically obvious: there is a world beyond and independent of our individual consciousness; a world that we all inhabit. And, alas, we clearly can’t change how this world works by a mere act of individual conscious volition. But to acknowledge this does not require the bankrupt notion of matter outside consciousness. It only requires a transpersonal consciousness within which our individual consciousnesses are immersed.

Indeed, I maintain that the external world is itself constituted by transpersonal experiential states that simply present themselves to us in the form we call ‘matter.’ As such, ‘matter’ is merely the extrinsic appearance—the image—of inner experience; there’s nothing more to it. In the case of living beings, the ‘matter’ constituting their body is the extrinsic appearance of their individual experiential states (this being the reason why measurable patterns of brain activity correlate with inner experience). In the case of the inanimate universe, on the other hand, ‘matter’ is the extrinsic appearance of transpersonal experiential states.

I agree that sort of idealism is consistent. It's not that different from Berkeley's God in the Quad argument that God keeps everything in mind, so of course things/processes continue to exist whether we're experiencing them.

I am still unclear why you think there's a problem here for the idealist. As I clearly said, the idealist believes the sensible world exists outside our experience.
Now, you seem to think covid poses a problem. Why?

Now, you seem to think covid poses a problem. Why? — Bartricks

Do you include viruses in the sensible world outside experience which cause human sickness and death?

What do you think an idealist will say about covid? That there is no covid?

What do you think an idealist will say about covid? That there is no covid? — Bartricks

That covid is a theoretical explanation under a materialistic framework for pandemic experiences. This isn't my first idealist rodeo on here. Granted, the idealist arguments have varied from a Kantian to anti-realist to subjective.

We used to have a couple hard core subjective idealists on here that would make rather extreme sounding anti-realist arguments.

how was that an answer to my question?

Do you think an idealist denies that covid exists?

Do you think an idealist denies that covid exists? — Bartricks

Depends on the idealist and what is meant by "covid exists". I would ask you how covid exists outside sensible experience and it not be material/physical.

You don't know what idealism is, do you?

You don't know what idealism is, do you? — Bartricks

There's only kind of idealism? Tell me what it is then, and what it means for covid to exist for an idealist.

Read my earlier posts.

I would ask you how covid exists outside sensible experience and it not be material/physical. — Marchesk

I believe this matter and the nature of the physical has been answered several times already. I think @Bartricks has a very succinct definition of idealism.

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). — Bartricks

So Berkeley's version? I said in another post that's consistent. God keeps covid in mind as an idea. I'm an atheist, so I don't find that very convincing, but it's at least internally consistent.

This is not exacyly true. — Gregory

Disputes about Kant and Hegel and the meaning of noumena are a labyrinth which many enter but from which few emerge.

How does the idealist explain the end of their experience when hitting the bottom or dying from an infection? — Marchesk

Notice that your question assumes a perspective outside that of the subject of those experiences.

The point I’m making is that the very notion of ‘existence’ is predicated on there being defined objects arrayed in space and time. The meaning of ‘exist’ is ‘to stand apart’ - to be this, as distinct from that. And it is the mind that brings that order to the Universe. All of your statements assume that this order is real absent any point of view or perspective, not noticing that the mind creates the stage against which all such judgements are made in the first place.

The fundamental absurdity of materialism is that it starts from the objective, and takes as the ultimate ground of explanation something objective, whether it be matter in the abstract, simply as it is thought, or after it has taken form, is empirically given—that is to say, is substance, the chemical element with its primary relations. Some such thing it takes, as existing absolutely and in itself, in order that it may evolve organic nature and finally the knowing subject from it, and explain them adequately by means of it; whereas in truth all that is objective is already determined as such in manifold ways by the knowing subject through its forms of knowing, and presupposes them; and consequently it entirely disappears if we think the subject away. Thus materialism is the attempt to explain what is immediately given us by what is given us indirectly. All that is objective, extended, active—that is to say, all that is material—is regarded by materialism as affording so solid a basis for its explanation, that a reduction of everything to this can leave nothing to be desired (especially if in ultimate analysis this reduction should resolve itself into action and reaction). But we have shown that all this is given indirectly and in the highest degree determined, and is therefore merely a relatively present object, for it has passed through the machinery and manufactory of the brain, and has thus come under the forms of space, time and causality, by means of which it is first presented to us as extended in space and ever active in time. — Arthur Schopenhauer, World as Will and Idea

otice that your question assumes a perspective outside that of the subject of those experiences. — Wayfarer

Yes, and it's this sort of implied idealism I was wanting to criticize. If there is no perspective outside our subjective experiences (like God or the universal consciousness), then idealism is put into an awkward position of explaining why covid or evolution are explanations for our experiences. And why experiences tend to end when a subject falls off a cliff.

But if God or the universe are there to experience covid and people falling to their deaths, then that's not an inherent problem. I understand that a Kantian discussion of noumena would take this to a different place about whether we can say reality (noumena) is anything like covid or cliff falls. Cue questions of space and time and the wavefunction, lol.

For the record, I tend to think reality is something other (more than?) the physical.

It's not 'God', but a mind that could be God (or could not be).

And it is not just consistent (unlike materialism) it is also demonstrably true. The sensible world is the place your sensations resemble, yes? And sensations can only resemble other sensations, yes? And sensations can't exist unsensed, can they? Join the dots.

A materialist about the sensible world must maintain either that our sensations of it in no way resemble it (in which case in what sense are they 'of' the sensible world?) or they must maintain that the sensible world is composed of extra-mental sensations, which is incoherent. Sensations are essentially sensed - that is, for any sensation there is a mind that is having it. The idea of a sensation that is no mind's sensation is inconceivable and makes no sense.

why experiences tend to end when a subject falls off a cliff. — Marchesk

That tells me you didn't understand the point of my post, but I've been down this rabbit hole umpteen times in the past, so I'll leave it there.

That tells me you didn't understand the point of my post, but I've been down this rabbit hole umpteen times in the past, so I'll leave it there. — Wayfarer

You're right I don't understand the point of what Schopenhauer is trying to say. It doesn't explain the end of experiences, and how we have objective explanations for them. I'm definitely in the realist/objective camp.

And sensations can only resemble other sensations, yes? — Bartricks

I would disagree there. Sensations resemble physical things, or at least real things which are not always sensed by some mind. Because we have real bodies in a real world that produce those sensations.

That tells me you didn't understand the point of my post, but I've been down this rabbit hole umpteen times in the past, so I'll leave it there. — Wayfarer

Yeah... I think this is the issue. People don't seem to follow the argument. I think they fight it rather than go with the flow. IMO one doesn't have to accept it as true to understand it.

All you've done there is assert materialism! You haven't challenged the premise.

This is philosophy. In philosophy one uses reason to try and figure out what's true. That means something. It means that worldviews shouldn't turn up in premises, but conclusions. YOu need to 'conclude' that materialism is true without simply assuming it is. Otherwise you're not doing philosophy.

Now, Berkeley concluded that the sensible world is made of another mind's mental states. He didn't just assert it. He arrived at the conclusion from apparent self-evident truths of reason alone.

But what you're doing is assuming the truth of a worldview and then rejecting premises that imply its falsity. That's dogmatism. It's no different from a detective deciding ahead of investigation that Tony did the crime and then rejecting any apparent evidence that implies otherwise.

Materialism needs to be in a conclusion, not a premise.

You're right I don't understand the point of what Schopenhauer is trying to say. — Marchesk

Make an effort. He's saying: you assume the reality of the objects of experience, but what are 'objects', unless you've assimilated them into your mind via the synthesis of data, sensation, perception and understanding? What do you think your fantastically elaborated hominid forebrain spends all its time doing?

This is not a discussion about your or my personal experience, which obviously is limited by your or my death, but about the nature of knowledge, how the understanding works. It's an analysis made by standing back and reflecting on the processes implied by your seeing of the [apple/tree/chair/star].

It takes a change of perspective, but that's what philosophy requires - seeing things differently.

Now, Berkeley concluded that the sensible world is made of another mind's mental states. He didn't just assert it. He arrived at the conclusion from apparent self-evident truths of reason alone. — Bartricks

So if one doesn't accept Berkeley's "self-evident" truths, one is guilty of dogmatism? One wonders why all philosophers aren't idealists then!

He's saying: you assume the reality of the objects of experience, but what are 'objects', unless you've assimilated them into your mind via the synthesis of data, sensation, perception and understanding? — Wayfarer

The things which are responsible for your mind having something to assimilate. Also that which you ends your experience. How does Schopenhauer account for death? Should we bring Meillassoux and fossils into the discussion? Evolution has already been mentioned.

Oh do pay attention. That is NOT what I said, is it?

Oh do pay attention. That is NOT what I said, is it? — Bartricks

I didn't quote you?

But what you're doing is assuming the truth of a worldview and then rejecting premises that imply its falsity. That's dogmatism. — Bartricks

I didn't assume the truth of idealism. I said Berkeley's idealism is internally consistent.