The materialist unscientifically presumes a substance outside of consciousness

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Nonduality teacher Rupert Spira (who here also mentions his colleague Bernardo Kastrup) succinctly and eloquently articulates key arguments for idealism:

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  • Sciborg_S_Patel
(2022-07-05, 03:25 AM)Ninshub Wrote: Nonduality teacher Rupert Spira (who here also mentions his colleague Bernardo Kastrup) succinctly and eloquently articulates key arguments for idealism:


Dualism vs. monism, there is an objective external world vs. everything is mental.

Idealism as a form of metaphysical monism holds that consciousness, not matter, is the ground of all being. It is monist because it holds that there is only one type of thing in the universe and idealist because it holds that one thing to be consciousness.

I think an excellent post by Silver Asiatic well encapsulates my dualistic view of the matter, at https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-...e-evolved/:

Quote:"If we have universals (abstract concepts) that are distinct from particular, we have a basis for material/immaterial dualism. This refutes monism.
We can start with the Law of Identity. Already, our rational process requires a dualism: “This thing is one thing which is not all other things”. That’s the dualistic nature of rational thought. Monism would have to deny that.
Additionally, people deny the dualism of truth vs falsehood. However, we align truth with “what is real”. That’s how we validate the idea. So, we have reality vs illusion – or truth vs falsehood. All of these are dualisms. Again, this is just breaking down monism – either “all mind” monism or “all material” it doesn’t matter. In an absolute monist system, you can’t make distinctions. Everything is one. But that violates the Law of Identity and is thus irrational.
A person could argue for absurdity by saying that logic does not correspond to reality and truth and falsehood are equal, and that the Law of Non-Contradiction does not hold.
If we said “but you’re contradicting yourself” they can say “so what?”
All of that’s fine except nobody can communicate with that person and the person has affirmed (which is a statement of truth) that rational thought has no value, etc.
Basically that’s just insanity.
So instead, we affirm that rational distinctions are based on reality. Therefore there really are two apples, and when we have two more, we count them to be four apples. They are real.

I can accept that a person may reject this and insist that all is mind and there is no physical reality (given quantum indeterminacy, etc). The biggest logical problem I’ve found with that, however, is why all of humanity has intuitively felt that there is an external, material reality and even the science we’ve used to discover quantum effects is based on that same ontology.

In other words, there does not seem to be a good reason to reject our intuition about life and reality especially considering that even if we thought that everything-is-mind, we’d still have to live and think and speak as if there is a reality outside of us and that physical objects really exist."
(This post was last modified: 2022-07-05, 10:32 AM by nbtruthman. Edited 1 time in total.)
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  • Raimo
(2022-07-05, 10:26 AM)nbtruthman Wrote: Dualism vs. monism, there is an objective external world vs. everything is mental.

Idealism as a form of metaphysical monism holds that consciousness, not matter, is the ground of all being. It is monist because it holds that there is only one type of thing in the universe and idealist because it holds that one thing to be consciousness.

I think an excellent post by Silver Asiatic well encapsulates my dualistic view of the matter, at https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-...e-evolved/:

I find a purely Dualistic approach as unhelpful as a purely Monistic approach, honestly...

Idealist monism fails at intuitively answering the question of why we experience distinctions between things, between extremes, while Dualism fails to answer the question of the origins of the two major substances of mind and matter.

I think that the seemingly impossible issue can be resolved simply enough.

Consciousness can simply... exist without need of anything external to it. It just... exists, for itself, by itself. Existence in isolation, so to speak. Matter, on the other hand, has no reality or existence or meaning without Consciousness giving definition and purpose to it. It doesn't exist before Consciousness creates it.

A dualism out of a monism...

Taoist philosophy has an excellent concept for explaining this... the Taijitu, representing Yin and Yang, Earth and Heaven, the twin creative powers of existence, the Two existing as One, eternally giving rise to the other, Yin bearing the seed of Yang, and Yang bearing the seed of Yin.

Heaven, Yang, is initially undivided, and is thus unmanifest and formless. It has no distinct qualities, because there is nothing to define it. Heaven, alone, is the Monad.

Heaven then gives rise to Earth, Yin. The moment Earth comes into being, so does Heaven, as Earth's existence defines and brings Heaven into existence. Earth and Heaven are able to be recognized by virtue of the other's existence.
“Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.”
~ Carl Jung


(This post was last modified: 2022-07-05, 03:36 PM by Valmar. Edited 4 times in total.)
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