Why do some people have difficulty grasping Idealism?

[Scholar]

 

This conversation reminded me of some fundamental disconnect I have with people when talking about certain issues. The materialist basically will say "Well, we have evidence that atoms exist, because these models allow us to preduct things", and the idealist of course will respond with this, which should completely kill any argument the materialist can provide:

Whatever notion of materialism you have, whatever notion of an atom you have, whatever notion of objectivity and outsidedness (outside of consciousness) you have, it is all consciousness. If you say that any aspect of your consciousness is true, which you have to necessarily do to claim materialism is true, then you admit the material is consciousness/ideal.

 

I came to this conclusion a long time ago by independent contemplation, and I can't quite understand what makes it so that some people just cannot grasp this. To me saying they lack the awareness to see this is unsatisfying. It's so simple, it's so obvious, yet it is being denied.

 

It seems like they are so lost in a certain aspect of consciousness, that they do not even know what consciousness is. When they refer to the material, they do refer to consciousness, of course because they could not refer or point to anything but consciousness, yet the entire play is to pretend that it isn't consciousness. It's to say that consciousness is not consciousness. You cannot even escape this, it's obvious that you cannot escape it, it's self-evident. Yet, it is not seen.

It's like the materialist is already an idealist, he just doesn't know it. He cannot be anything but an idealist, and anything he could possibly believe will be idealistic. Really, what is happens is that he contracted the ideal to a subset, to a concept, which he can then deny. But what is actually ideal is all of that which he could even claim to be true, or deny to be true.

 

How can this be resolved? Is it just an issue with people being too immersed in the conceptual, and being unable to see the conceptual for what it is? A lot of this kind of dogmatism and basically delusion seems to come from people being too close to whatever concept they believe. It's like they live from that concept, they are like a fish in the water, not aware of the existence of the water.

It is frustrating because it's something you just can't explain to people, because the explanation is so simple, yet they do not grasp it. They are completely deaf to it.

Edited January 28, 2022 by Scholar

[liamnewsom202]

I really struggle with it personally cause I have this deep assumption that outside of my direct experience exists something which is still directly perceivable by some kind of sense aparatus regardless of my own. 

 

It seems like our model and interpretation of reality relates to a real fact of what the apparent "things" of perception consist of. For example the toilet paper roll I see before me, it's shape and quality is all determined and allowed for by my sense apparatus, but that thing in and of itself I have no clue what that is. I know that it's there because other apparent entities or body minds interact and can pooint to the same thing even outside if my direct conciousness.

 

I just find my mind and model and interpretation is so desperately stooped in this way of thinking. The more I try and get out of it the more I feel stuck in certain examples.

[Leo Gura]

They have to deny it because if they don't their whole worldview will unravel like a sweater.

What they are unaware of is that materialism is a dogma, like religion. But they cannot admit that because their identity is wrapped up with "I do not believe in fairytails like those religious morons. I am scientific and science is above that."

What they fundamentally fear is the collapse of science.

[liamnewsom202]

@Leo Gura even with a willing open mind I find it so challenging to get. Can you elaborate on how the world view breaks down and where it is overlooking? 

 

I just don't get the whole notion of there being nothing out there outside of my direct phenomenal experience. I feel like there ought to be something out there that is being perceived, regardless of whatever it is. 

 

My direct experience keeps validating it but my mind just cannot rack itself around it, I really want to understand it rationally.

 

Any tips here?

[DocWatts]

Science can tell you how nature behaves, but not what nature is.

Quantum mechanics and relativity theory still work regardless of whether the substrate of Reality is physical, mental, or something else.

Idealism isn't a threat to science, it only appears to be a threat to those that conflate science with ontological assumptions inherent to materialism.

Edited February 2, 2022 by DocWatts

[The0Self]

54 minutes ago, liamnewsom202 said:

@Leo Gura even with a willing open mind I find it so challenging to get. Can you elaborate on how the world view breaks down and where it is overlooking? 

 

I just don't get the whole notion of there being nothing out there outside of my direct phenomenal experience. I feel like there ought to be something out there that is being perceived, regardless of whatever it is. 

 

My direct experience keeps validating it but my mind just cannot rack itself around it, I really want to understand it rationally.

 

Any tips here?

There is nothing apart from what simply is -- one could call that consciousness. The issue for you, is that you seem to be confusing consciousness with your own finite mind (which itself is merely an appearance of consciousness).

[liamnewsom202]

@The0Self would you call the thing in itself, the noumenon, that tree which falls in the forest and makes or doesn't make a sound when nowone is there to perceive it conciousness aswell?

I guess I'm just curious what that is, maybe rather than it being out of conciousness, it is simply out of the perceptual field of my mind body complex.

Is conciousness just the substance then? It can't be atoms cause what are atoms made of etc.. plus atoms are also just more sense data and qualitative experience arnt they?

I guess my greatest hunch is that reality is simply nothing and the whole thing exists as that and when perception and the sense aparatus occours that's just more of that nothingness appearing, colourful and "thinged". The thingification is simply just the finite mental activity.

Maybe the reason it is appearing as if there is consensus and empirical similarity and objectivity happening is because of similar limited mental structures in animals, other humans etc.. are literally designed to interact with the noumenal nothingness of conciousness/allowance/being in the same way, it produces a similar image hence creating the illusion of the phenomenal shared reality. We have no proof that our experience qualitivatively even looks the same anyways. Is my red your green? Etc..

The question of what anything even is beofre anyone looks at it completely fascinates me

Man, feel like I might be making this over technical I just really want a well reasoned position. This sort of inquiry and mental sexy times keeps me up at night sometimes..

[liamnewsom202]

27 minutes ago, The0Self said:

There is nothing apart from what simply is -- one could call that consciousness. The issue for you, is that you seem to be confusing consciousness with your own finite mind (which itself is merely an appearance of consciousness).

I guess my main objection is, if there is nothing apart from what is here and now in my direct experience. Then how can I be quite confident Pierre is waking up right now in France, or that anyone else on this forum is doing what there doing, all apparently out of my direct conciousness!

(I have a feeling I'm mixing up my identity and assuming the identity of this apparently seperately individual locust of conciousness)

[Leo Gura]

1 hour ago, liamnewsom202 said:

@Leo Gura even with a willing open mind I find it so challenging to get. Can you elaborate on how the world view breaks down and where it is overlooking? 

I have explained this in detail throughout many of my videos. I'm not going to do it again here.

Quote

I just don't get the whole notion of there being nothing out there outside of my direct phenomenal experience. I feel like there ought to be something out there that is being perceived, regardless of whatever it is. 

Yeah, well, stop assuming that.

Notice that that's nothing but an assumption.

Quote

My direct experience keeps validating it but my mind just cannot rack itself around it, I really want to understand it rationally.

Any tips here?

Take psychedelics.

25 minutes ago, liamnewsom202 said:

The question of what anything even is beofre anyone looks at it completely fascinates me

The problem is that you assume that anyone is looking at stuff. No one is looking. Stuff just exists. What you see at all times is noumena. You just fantasize that it is something else, like "looking" or "subjective experience". There is no subjective experience. There is only noumena and you have confused it for experience because you needed to construct a sense of self out of that noumena.

21 minutes ago, liamnewsom202 said:

I guess my main objection is, if there is nothing apart from what is here and now in my direct experience. Then how can I be quite confident Pierre is waking up right now in France, or that anyone else on this forum is doing what there doing, all apparently out of my direct conciousness!

You're spinning a fantasy. And you are deeply insecure about your confidence in this fantasy, which is why your mind is active in playing games and why you are afraid of truth.

[The0Self]

28 minutes ago, liamnewsom202 said:

Is conciousness just the substance then? It can't be atoms cause what are atoms made of etc.. plus atoms are also just more sense data and qualitative experience arnt they?

"Atoms" are thoughts or appearances of consciousness.

28 minutes ago, liamnewsom202 said:

The question of what anything even is beofre anyone looks at it completely fascinates me

No one looks. There isn't anything separate from the appearance of everything, and there isn't anyone conscious of that from a separate standpoint -- it's an illusion that there is. This merely points, it isn't something that can be believed in and in fact if you do believe it then it certainly isn't what's being pointed to.

24 minutes ago, liamnewsom202 said:

I guess my main objection is, if there is nothing apart from what is here and now in my direct experience. Then how can I be quite confident Pierre is waking up right now in France, or that anyone else on this forum is doing what there doing, all apparently out of my direct conciousness!

(I have a feeling I'm mixing up my identity and assuming the identity of this apparently seperately individual locust of conciousness)

There aren't two realities. You're confusing absolute consciousness with finite mind of an apparent individual.

Edited February 2, 2022 by The0Self

[Scholar]

7 hours ago, liamnewsom202 said:

I guess my main objection is, if there is nothing apart from what is here and now in my direct experience. Then how can I be quite confident Pierre is waking up right now in France, or that anyone else on this forum is doing what there doing, all apparently out of my direct conciousness!

(I have a feeling I'm mixing up my identity and assuming the identity of this apparently seperately individual locust of conciousness)

You are approaching this from the wrong angle. You are in the layer of the conceptual, and you are attempting to create a conceptual framework that you then will conceptualize to be the "real". That's basically what you are unaware of. Forget about direct and non-direct consciousness, focus exactly on what it means when you say "outside" (of consciousness) or "reality".

The fundamental issue is you are not even aware what it means and what you are doing when you say something is "outside". That entire feeling you have of something existing outside of your consciousness, what do you think that is? It's a feeling. If you say that feeling is real, then reality is feeling, then reality is ideal. You cannot escape this. Fundamentally, anything you will ever conceptualize will be ideal, it will be made of consciousness, and if you really feel like that different aspect of consciousness is reality, then that's just another "thing" in consciousness. What you are basically doing when you say the world is material is like saying "The world is red!".

You would call redness a perception, but you fail to realize that your entire sense of reality is a perception, including any physicalist and materialist notions. All of them are just made of mind, and the irony is, you call out and say "But that's reality, that is not mind, that is reality outside of mind!". Your concept is self-defeating because you say something is outside of your mind, yet you claim to know about it and say that it is reality. Whatever you will ever conceptualize, including the concept of something that you cannot perceive or that is outside of you, will be within you, and thus it will be ideal.

All of that is still mind, you cannot escape this. You have to see that, rather than trying to create more conceptual frameworks. You have to realize that what you are claiming to be the case is literally absurd, it's a self-deception. You are pretending that your own ideas are not consciousnesss, that your own feelings about reality (which is what the problem here is) are not feelings, that they somehow transcend your mind. And even the notion of transcendence of mind is something within mind.

 

This is the first step, once your truly realize that, you will see that your notion of reality, in the way your frame it as an mind opposed to a world, is something that is happening right here, in this existence that you are. That this is existence, and that your ideas do not give rise to existence, but rather that they are within existence. Then you will recognize the Unity of Existence. Not because you think that to be the case, but because it will be obvious to you that it is the case, and that everything you previously did was a game you were playing with yourself, and that you continue to play them game even now, as you talk about existence and Unity and so forth.

Edited February 2, 2022 by Scholar

[liamnewsom202]

Thanks for the replies, plenty to work with here