samantabhadra wrote:
The things with which I am familiar were previously percieved by my mind and now have an existence seprate from the original sense object within my mind. So when I come into contact with a familiar object I feel that what I percieve is a result of my minds interpretation of that object.

However when I come into contact with an unfamilar sense object I feel that it exists within my consicousness in its own right apart from the direction or knowledge of my consicousness. Its exitence within my consicouness is totaly a result of perception. To me this implys a seprate existence from my consious self. But because of the unity of my consicousness and my perception ultimately the new object of sense and the resulting conception of it within my consicous mind are ultimately one from the moment I come into contact with it.

As far as an object of senses existence before I come into contact with it. I am unsure due to lack of contact with that object. However from the first moment of perception the object of sense becomes one with my consiousness through my perception resulting in knowledge of that object.

I was told that I was an idealist of sorts. So this is my perception of how my mind works and how I percive reality. I hope that these thoughts help your critique.

I'll try to help if I can and learn the best I can from you.

Human5678 wrote:
The typical idealism of Berkeley, Kant, Hegel, and gang, do not deny the existence of the external world. They, like everyone, recognized the reality of the external world from the common sense perspective.

"35. I do not argue against the existence of any one thing that we can apprehend either by sense or reflexion. That the things I see with my eyes and touch with my hands do exist, really exist, I make not the least question."
George Berkeley: A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge. 1710.


For the majority, the externalness of object is seldom questioned. However, philosophical realists go a step further to assert, without proof, that external objects exist (ontologically) absolutely independent of human minds.

To the idealists, the realist's view of objects existing of absolute independence from mind do not appear to be tenable.
They noted that somehow the mind is involved in the actualization of external objects and what is external is only apparent.
Without denying the existence of the external world, the idealists set out to explore the possibility that the human mind is involved in the actualization of external object.

While I agree the involvement of the mind in the actualization of external objects is a very probable hypothesis, the idealists like Berkeley, Kant, Hegel, and others, had not been successful in providing any convincing conclusions to the hypothesis.

The best you can do is to critique the idealism of Berkeley (god), Kant (thing-in-itself), Hegel(absolute), and others for not providing any convincing conclusions, but credit should be given to their attempts in bringing the mind as a variable in the actualization of reality.

To date, the other sciences, like physics, neuroscience, neuropsychology, cognitive science (2nd generation) and the likes are progressing to demonstrate the inevitable involvement and dependence of the observer on the observed.

To Mega Therion wrote:
[I'll repeat the argument in a clearer form, since I think my original post was an awful mess:

(1) Let us suppose, along with the subjective idealist, that our mind produces mental phenomena without external stimuli.

(2) But it is obvious that there is a definite pattern to these mental phenomena, and so they should be produced according to some set of laws.

(3) Now, laws are in fact relations. 'If a, then b.' For want of a better term, I'll call the entities that appear in such relations the objects of the law. So, an electron is an object for the Dirac equation and so on. I realise the terminology is awkward, but it's the best I could come up with.

(4) But mental phenomena can't be the objects of the laws in question; particularly since the same mental phenomenon can indicate the same external object (my example with the tomato and a photo of a tomato). So, it seems that we need something with properties analogous to external objects.

(5)As for whether such objects are dependent on a mind. When I say that an entity A is dependent on another entity B, I claim that some property of A would be different if some property of B were different. But, at least for finite minds, external objects qua objects of laws obviously can't depend on them. An electron is an electron is an electron, whether it is measured by me or by Johann Gottlieb. One could say that such objects are then dependent on an infinite mind, or something like the collective unconsciousness and so on, but this is ontologically suspect for reasons of parsimony, plus it doesn't seem to tell us anything new about the objects in question.

So, the most probable theory is the one that admits some sort of external objects.

As for modern physics supporting some sort of subjective idealism, this is a claim that is often made, but is basically incoherent. The only interpretation of QM that would suggest something like that - that consciousness causes the collapse of the wave-function - is so full of problems few consider it serious

Naetharu wrote:
Hi,

While this post is most interesting, we seem to have overlooked the key issue here. For the (subjective) Idealist, such as in the case of Berkeley, the issue is essentially an epistemic one. That is to say, his question is given rise in the form of "Can I really be sure about this so-called "Material" world?"

Now, quite clearly the conclusion that Berkeley comes to is that the only way that we can be at all sure about what exists outside of our own introspection is by means of perception - and thus the point that is being refuted here is that there is some substance that supports these perceptions (Ideas in Berkeley's language) that is something that can be inferred from our perceptive experience but is not the same as that experience.

Taking this key point into account, I can see where you are coming form, insofar as you are saying that it is the case that our worldly experience has at the very least the appearance of consistency (For example, things always appear to get larger when I near them, rather than shrinking etc) and so this seems to give reasonable cause to suspect some underlying "object" that is the cause of this consistency. Therefore, I ask two things of you in order to give me reason to grant you your point:

1) What is it that you think this "Substance" or "Essence" that we call "Corporeal Objects" might be? I, for one, cannot imagine a single thing that could be given to be this strange idea of and underlying mind-independent world.

2) Secondly, what makes you think that the consistency that we experience cannot itself be a quality of our minds? Considering that we cannot experience anything other than perceptions, and it would seem that at the very best we can but come to know this "real world" of yours medially (that is to say we can only infer it's being from the combinations of perception that we experience) - there would seem to be no reason to suggest that this cannot be a quality of our minds. Rather, it would seem that it is an appeal to a dogmatic acceptance that there must be certain qualities that are considered non-mind-based that gives rise to your assertion that these consistencies must find their source elsewhere than in the minds in which they are experienced.

Kind Regards

Naetharu

Human5678 wrote:

Your concept of ‘external stimuli’ is based on the realist view and thus cannot be applicable to the subjective idealist’s theory.

The subject idealist (Berkeley) view would be;
Phenomena and their separateness from other objects and subjects (externality) emerge as a spontaneous awareness which is initiated and driven by god via the mind (spirit).
There is no question of stimuli from outside independent of the mind and acting on the subject.
Berkeley used the concept of ‘perception’ and ‘idea’ in the process that god relies upon, but we should not use these two words in the ordinary sense.
If you believe in god, Berkeley’s theory will make sense and it would be something like that of the Matrix.
But Berkeley subjective idealism failed because god do not exists.

Human5678 wrote:

Since Berkeley’s subjective idealism is false, i.e. god do not exist, your point 2, 3, 4 and 5 would not be relevant.

The realist insists that external objects exist independent of mind.
However, atheistic (no god) idealists would never counter the realists with a direct opposite view, that external objects are dependent on the mind.
Instead the truth is that objects exist correlatively with subjects (mind).
Object and subject cannot exist independently without each other.
Note Putnam’s, ‘the World and Mind create the Mind and World’.

Human5678 wrote:
IMO, the findings of QM and other sciences researching the mind, i.e. neuroscience and the like, do point to a probable hypothesis that the mind is entangled with reality.