Materialism vs Idealism

originally posted by: cooperton

originally posted by: TzarChasm
a reply to: cooperton

No.

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

Consciousness does not precede matter. More specifically, the universe was not "thinking" before the first celestial bodies coalesced.

Unless you can demonstrate otherwise?

a reply to: TzarChasm

Idealism doesn't say that matter is thinking, it says that the universe is thought, and that what we call matter is the appearance of thought, and as such, matter doesn't have any effect on anything.

The burden of proof is actually on you, you have to prove that matter really exists as something fundamental and totally separated from mind, and that matter gives rise to mind.

a reply to: TzarChasm

you are aware that you could end these endles threads by just showing proof of what you postulate?

originally posted by: Terpene
a reply to: TzarChasm

you are aware that you could end these endles threads by just showing proof of what you postulate?

Or you could end it by showing proof of consciousness preceding matter.

a reply to: gosseyn

I don't think I need to understand it. It's too extreme and a simplification, I can smell that from a save distance, one doesn't have to step into every bs to know it stinks.

The main issue is you call it 'universal mind' but you really mean an anthropomorphous mind and that can't be because the human mind is limited, as you said: I can't read your thoughts, my thoughts can't influence the matter around me, which would have to be a given if it were all made from the same 'stuff'.

I am not saying that there isn't a realm of possibilities where everything is just potential waiting to be realised as matter, that's exactly my point actually:
A sign of intelligence (in this case: organising & processing information) is differentiation.
The monkey says "all bananas!" The intelligent monkey knows "there are green bananas, yellow, brown, small, hard, soft, big, sweet..." and the better his thinking gets he knows where, when and how to find the ones he loves the most, because not even all bananas are the same.
So to say all is consciousness, especially since no one knows what that really means is the opposite of helpful.
It won't help us figure out how it all works, if we just call it 'mind' where we don't know how it works and sacrifice what we know, about physics, chemistry, biology because maybe there might be a true universal intelligence managing the realm of possibilities. Which we can't access.
At least yet.

And if we could I bet we'd find mind is not consciousness and even consciousness comes in plenty of variations.
So this philosophical approach will always be useless.
And the point where we're at is: almost an infinite number of complex systems interacting in myriads of ways from micro to macro and between and beyond.
# is much more complicated than just 'one thing'.

a reply to: Peeple

My cat also has inner life, or consciousness, or awareness, or call it as you want. A place where inner experience can happen.

But since you don't want to understand, I am not going to waste my time with you.

a reply to: gosseyn

If you want to convince me: what is consciousness, how does it work, what does it need to exist?

originally posted by: gosseyn
a reply to: Peeple

My cat also has inner life, or consciousness, or awareness, or call it as you want. A place where inner experience can happen.

But since you don't want to understand, I am not going to waste my time with you.

And another one gives up before they've properly begun.

You can read everything I have posted so far on this thread and try to understand what idealism is about, or you can watch some videos, or read some articles. Either way I don't care about convincing you, it won't change anything.

Here is a good start

a reply to: gosseyn

That's an excuse because truth is you don't know. Nobody does.
Which should make you understand how absurd it is to say everything is consciousness, while you don't know what that is.

Everything is xarezhynto. That's a fact. What is xarezhynto? Nobody knows, but it makes me feel smart writing it.
That sums up your idealism.

a reply to: Peeple

you don't want to understand, you're here on a useless little crusade typical of ATS, so it's ok, move on.

a reply to: gosseyn

I was trying to have a conversation. Let's try that shall we?
Consciousness and the mind: what is it?
Wow me

How else could I take your philosophy serious if you can't answer that?

originally posted by: Peeple
a reply to: gosseyn
Consciousness and the mind: what is it?

Can't you tell what your own mind feels like ? You own consciousness ? Your own inner experiences ? Your own thoughts ? This is it. It is a given.

a reply to: gosseyn

Okay. My mind is as far as I can tell a product of what experiences, learning etc has shaped.
My inner experience is memory of perception.
Thoughts are more or less an inner dialogue to process information, feelings and everything that goes through my mind.
All of that is very tightly bound to my body, my gut, my hormones etc. and not the same as 'consciousness' per se, is it?

You say

the universe is one universal consciousness, or mind, and that the world around us is the mental process of this universal mind

that's what I would like to know, how does that work? What is that? Whose 'mind' is that?
If the universe is product of that consciousness and that means it existed before the universe => where and how?

a reply to: TzarChasm

showing proof of

That seems to be your great contribiution to most of these threads...

it is a mind thing!!!
there won`t be proof if the mind is not at it, but we`re working on it

originally posted by: Peeple
a reply to: gosseyn

Okay. My mind is as far as I can tell a product of what experiences, learning etc has shaped.
My inner experience is memory of perception.
Thoughts are more or less an inner dialogue to process information, feelings and everything that goes through my mind.
All of that is very tightly bound to my body, my gut, my hormones etc. and not the same as 'consciousness' per se, is it?

You say

the universe is one universal consciousness, or mind, and that the world around us is the mental process of this universal mind

that's what I would like to know, how does that work? What is that? Whose 'mind' is that?
If the universe is product of that consciousness and that means it existed before the universe => where and how?

No one knows where and how. All we know is that consciousness exists. We don't need to postulate the existence of an elusive substance called matter to explain the universe and us within it. That's the power of idealism. The burden of proof is on those who postulate that there is something called matter and that it's totally different from consciousness, and that it even gives rise to consciousness.

a reply to: gosseyn

And what would be the advantage we gain if we switch to that philosophy?
Materialism had a strong run, fire to the internet, it gave us a lot of tools and made most of our lives easier.
What is in it for us as a species if we now say everything is consciousness? We don't know what it is so what could we possibly learn if we now say everything is it?

a reply to: Peeple

And again, you're thinking in materialistic terms : there isn't matter on one side and thought on the other. The universe IS the universal mind. What we see in the universe is what the mental process of that universal mind looks like to us.

a reply to: gosseyn

What?
My problem is nobody knows what consciousness is, what it does, how it does it and I'm trying to figure out why anybody could possibly think a philosophy based on something we don't know explains more?

I'm out sorry, I tried, it doesn't make sense.
As long as you can't say what consciousness is it feels like a voluntary lobotomy to say everything is consciousness.

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

Not necessary if time is not linear, which it apparently isn't. Yeah, some baby has a dream about fireworks and 14 billion years earlier the cosmic background equilibrium becomes unbalanced and we get the Big Bang.