Again, I'm not saying that they are identical or different. I'm saying that the notion of physical and non-physical is incoherent, so you can't even say that they are different or similar.

If there is more to the physical vs. Non-physical dichotomy than a difference in location, then what is it? If this distinction is so easy to understand then why hasn't anyone been able to explain it?

Could you explain how, in your view, ideas and external-to-me physical stuff are identical? — Terrapin Station

I never said they were identical. I said the differences between physical and non-physical are incoherent. It's up to the person making the claim that the physical and nonphysical exist to explain what they are and what their differences are.

So far the only difference you seem to imply is location - external vs. internal. Is that the only difference?

Okay, what is "awareness"? I'm not trying to be an ass. I'm simply trying to get at the difference between the two. You've made this claim about the difference being in how they interpret their experiences. I'm trying to get at the substance of that difference and so far there isn't one that you've shown.

Who was it that said something like, "The wise man questions the simple things, while the fool takes them for granted." I think is was some old Chinese philosopher - and no I'm not getting it from a fortune cookie :grin:

So you're not sure what we're talking about when we talk about experiencing something? That would be interesting, but I'm just curious if it's what you're really saying. — Terrapin Station

For the idealist and the realist, "experiencing" must mean completely different things. How would they define it?

No evidence really just inference from induction which is the same with science. Starting from the first person inquiry can only be justified by saying there really is no better place to start. If there is one thing we can know it is our own minds and thoughts. Not infallible knowledge of of how they work but at least of their existence. — Jamesk

Yes! Philosophy is a science.

The rest is spoken just a like a true realist.

No--I wasn't "establishing anyting." I was talking about different ways of experiencing the world and/or parsing that experience.

It's fine to say that both direct realists and idealists think that they're experiencing the tree as it is. That's a similarity between the two.

But there are differences, too. One difference is that idealists think that what they're experiencing is an idea. Realists think that what they're experiencing as it is is an external-to-themselves, physical thing. — Terrapin Station

Hmmm. It sounds like we need to come up with a coherent definition of "experiencing" to make any sense of what you said.

"Experience things as they are" yes, but the difference between realism and idealism is (a) in what each believes the tree is, exactly, and (b) what each believes is the relationship between themselves and the tree. — Terrapin Station

(a) I thought we established that the tree is a tree. Why would it be something else?

(b) We need the answer to (a) first.

I thought I was making that distinction clear. I think your apparent obfuscation was pretense. — Metaphysician Undercover

Okay, so the only difference between "physical" vs. "non-physical" is difference in location - "physical" being outside the mind and "non-physical" being inside the mind?

We've been through this, one is memory, the other anticipation. I remember how my mother was, and I anticipate how she will be. Where's the problem? If you have difficulty distinguishing between your memories of something, and your anticipations concerning that thing, then I think you have some serious issues as a human being. — Metaphysician Undercover

I don't see how that answers my question.

How do you recognize things, MU?

Yes, there is a constant. But the constant is distinct from the memories, and distinct from the anticipations. It appears to have been created within my mind as a means of relating the memories to the anticipations. I don't really understand the constant, do you? To me, it doesn't seem to be a form at all, it's material. That's how I understand matter, under the Aristotelian conception, it's the constant, the thing which does not change. It's not a form though, it's matter. — Metaphysician Undercover

What is "matter"?

Are you open to the concept that there is change that happens so quickly or so slowly that we don't notice it?

Well, I don't think we really agreed. You seem to think that there can be no mind without information. I think that the mind creates information, and can therefore be prior to information, creating its own information. — Metaphysician Undercover

Then you're a solipsist.

Sometimes I wonder if it's not kind of a consequence of people who "think too much" in this regard: maybe there are some people who never are simply aware of a tree, say, but instead they always think about it--they think about what it is (including the name "tree"), they think about how they parse the color, the shape, etc. And so on. They never basically have an "empty mind" where they just experience things. If that were the case, then it would make more sense how maybe everything would seem like an idea to those folks, because they can't experience anything without having ideas about it. — Terrapin Station

Idealists typically resort to using God as the ultimate source of ideas, so I always thought that it was a consequence of some hope of immortality (death is "physical", or just an "idea"), but I can see how your explanation could be useful too.

If you experience things without having any ideas about them, AND you don't buy the realist picture of there being things in the world that are independent of you, with you being a human body situated in that realist world etc., then it wouldn't make any sense to think of the phenomenally appearing tree that it's an idea, something mental, etc. rather than "just being a tree" (not with the term attached (or any terms), etc.--but I have to type it somehow) — Terrapin Station

That would be direct realism - that the tree that is experienced is the one and only tree, it's not a representation of an external tree. Solipsism is a form of direct realism.

But that would be how it is for idealism, too. Idealism is no different than direct realism in that idealists believe that they experience things as they actually are - as ideas. This contributes to my point that there is no difference between idealism and realism that is coherent.

Solipsism is the risk that Descartes also ran, but Berkeley is firm on their being other minds. — Jamesk

Which would just be another assumption made by someone (Berkeley's word is not the final word) who is being skeptical of others' assumptions. What's new? One unfalsifiable claim is just as good as any other. Where's the evidence, not just of other minds, but of spiritual stuff vs. physical stuff, God, etc.?

No I'm not confusing these, I simply believe that there are physical forms which I sense. I also believe that the physical vs. non-physical dichotomy is not a good one. That's what I was arguing when you engaged me. — Metaphysician Undercover

Then why do you continue to use the terms if they aren't "good"? What do YOU mean by the term, "physical"? I think it would be more useful to me, because it would be easier for me to understand, if you made the distinction between things in your mind as opposed to things outside of your mind when you write your posts. Remember though, that both types of things have causal influences on each other. They interact.

This is not true. I'm going to see my mother today, and I think about how she was last time I saw her, and I think about how she will be this time. My mother does not have the same form in my memories and anticipations, because I know she will not be the same. You say that I am over complicating things, but I am not, you are over simplifying. Reality is such that things change. And, they change at the present as time passes. Therefore I must respect this in my thoughts about things like my mother, she will not be the same as the last time I saw her. You, in your desire to simplify things, appear to have no respect for this aspect of reality. Representing a complex reality as simple, is a mistake, it's misunderstanding. — Metaphysician Undercover

Then how do you know you're thinking about your mother in the past or future, or even seeing her in the near-present? Of course she's not wearing the same clothes and may have her hair different and be wearing different perfume, etc. But there obviously is a constant there, or else you'd never be able to recognize her. That is what I'm talking about. Those constant forms that allow you to recognize things (compare forms for similarities).

"Reasoning is thinking" does not mean that all thinking is reasoning. I hate it when people make ludicrous conclusions from my statements like that, it makes me think that I am talking to an imbecile. — Metaphysician Undercover

I think we already came to an agreement here anyway. Information is needed to reason, or think, or else what would you be thinking or reasoning about?

A robot is not a sentient being, so you are using "sense" in a different way, and arguing by equivocation. — Metaphysician Undercover

What do you mean by "sentient"? Are you a direct or an indirect realist?

Yes. Idealism is basically anthropomorphism.

Idealism posits a non-material / mind dependency claim. — Jamesk

This essentially equates to solipsism - that mind is all there is, or that mind is really the world. All idealism does is redefine what the world is. Why continue to use the term, "mind"?

No. It reaches an equilibrium state where the continuing dynamic change ceases to make a general difference. — apokrisis

...a general difference to what?

You would still call yourself actually you each morning even though, for instance, all your microtubules creating the cytoskeleton of your cells will have fallen apart and rebuilt a few times during the night. — apokrisis

You have a "Ship of Theseus" problem there.

Apo, my friend, there are no actualities. Change is the only constant. Change is what allows you to know you exist (I think therefore I am). Thinking is change in your mind. If there were no change, there would be no thinking - no existing.

isn't that what this thread is about, that physical vs. non-physical stuff. The point is, that when I consider a form which I remember, I believe that that form had a real physical existence, in the past. But when I consider a form which I anticipate in the future, I believe that this form does not have any real physical existence. — Metaphysician Undercover

You're confusing your forms (your sensory symbols) with what they represent. Your forms are neither physical nor non-physical. My point in this thread is that the non-physical vs. physical dichotomy is false. I've been explaining myself without using those terms. You should try it. Just talk about forms, not whether or not they are physical or not. You're making things more complicated than they need to be.

Your mother takes the same form in your memories of the past and in your predictions of the future, or else how could you say that you are remembering your mother, or predicting what your mother will do? You recognize your mother by the consistent forms you have for her (her appearance, her voice, her warm touch, her smell, etc.).

So I need a separation in my mind, a distinction between these two types of forms, the ones that I believe are directly related to physical existence, as having actual existence, and the ones that I believe are not directly related to physical existence, as having possible existence. The former are forms of actual things, and the latter are forms of possible things. — Metaphysician Undercover

The distinction comes in the action of recalling vs. not recalling. I know the difference between past and future, because I recall the past, not the future. The past is familiar. The future isn't. That is the distinction.

I don't see how that's possible. I, as a being with choice, am capable of influencing what occurs in the future. Therefore to the extend of my powers I will make sure that what occurs is good. However, due to things beyond my control bad things will happen. Bad things and good things will happen, therefore it is impossible that the future is neutral. — Metaphysician Undercover

Come on, MU. There are countless events occurring right now that have no bearing on your happiness or suffering. Get over yourself.

This is wrong. Reasoning is thinking. Therefore it is you who has things backward, not me. — Metaphysician Undercover

So then when people are unreasonable, they aren't thinking - there aren't any thoughts in their head?

AI has no "senses", therefore it has no sensations, nor sensory information. Information is patterns and AI creates patterns, therefore it creates information. Changes to patterns are a creation or destruction of information. — Metaphysician Undercover

A robot has senses. That is what I was talking about. If it has no senses, then information was programmed into the computer. The program is information. Our senses allow us to reprogram ourselves (learn).

You said “constantly”, not me. — apokrisis

That's because if something isn't constantly changing/becoming, then they stop changing. There are no more change of thoughts, movement, etc. In other words, it ceases to exist. Your actuality (what it finally becomes) would actually be nothingness (non-existence).

Things that change, exist. Things that don't change, don't exist. In other words, everything that exists, exists in time.

The simplest possible workable metaphysics is triadic - the kind in which substantial being, or actuality, is emergent from a developmental process of becoming. — apokrisis

An actuality that is constantly becoming never becomes and actuality. More word salad. There would just be a process of becoming. Everything collapses into monism - the simplest - naturally.

I mean an emptiness within, a hole. Have you never experienced anxiety? — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes, but I wouldn't describe it as a hole. It is something, not nothing. I would describe it as a warm feeling all around (because I start to sweat), with some tingling in the extremities and a heavy weight in my gut.

Sure, anticipation takes a form, but there are physical forms and non-physical forms, that's where dualism comes into play. — Metaphysician Undercover

No, no, no. Let's not go there with that physical vs. non-physical stuff. There is just a form your memories, beliefs, knowledge, language, and the way you see the world, takes. Let's just go with that.

A future thing, anticipated, has a form, but it's not a physical form, it's a form in the mind. The problem is that the form of the thing future is incomplete. I do not know exactly how the thing will come to be in the future, there are unknown factors, and the unknowns are the holes, the emptiness which is the root of the anxiety. Sure I anticipate many good things, and that is the root of my anticipation, looking forward to something good, but the good thing is not ensured until it actually happens. There are always imperfections in the plan, the formula, to bring it about, and these are the unknowns, the holes of anxiety. So the formula which is meant to ensure that the good thing actually happens according to plan is imperfect, it has holes, circumstances beyond my control, and this is the root of anxiety. — Metaphysician Undercover

But the future can be indifferent, or neutral - neither bad or good. Anxiety occurs as a result of what future you are presently predicting. To just say, "I am anxious about bad things that can happen" is to say that you are anxious about a category. "Bad" and "good" are categories of events with each category containing specific events that are bad or good. If you are anxious about a category, then it is just a matter of changing your thinking. Put other things in your mind, like what is happening now. Be aware that good things happen as well, and that that is life - a roller coaster. Enjoy the ride of anxiety and exhilaration.

I don't see how this is relevant. The mind reasons, what you call "processing". Reasoning is not composed of "the information", as you have suggested, it simply uses information, as a tool. The information is incidental. It is even possible that the mind creates the information through observation, as is the case with AI. So information is not necessary for the existence of a mind, a mind can create its own information to reason with. — Metaphysician Undercover

Of course reasoning is composed of the information. Again, what would you be reasoning about?

You have it backwards. Reasoning, just as logic, is the tool for thinking (processing information). We don't always reason. Sometimes, we are unreasonable.

How does AI "create" information? From nothing? Of course not. It doesn't create information. It processes it. "Process" is another word for "change". AI processes sensory information in order to complete some goal.

So information is not necessary for the existence of a mind, a mind can create its own information to reason with. — Metaphysician Undercover

In other words, the mind needs information to reason with.

No, these things are not "composed" of sensory representations. In fact, my anticipation is more like a void of such, a nothingness, where I feel there should be something. It's this feeling that something is going to occur, but not knowing exactly how to picture it which causes anxiety. When I have anxiety, and no idea why, it's like a hole, a void within, which leads to this nagging feeling that something bad is about to happen. — Metaphysician Undercover

I don't understand what you mean by "void". There is a void when you're unconscious. You only anticipate when you are unconscious?

The fact that you can even describe what it is like to anticipate means that your anticipation takes some form. You say that you have anxiety, which is a feeling - a form. Can you ever anticipate something good? What would it feel like to anticipate something good? How would you be able to distinguish between anticipating something bad and something good?

Furthermore, with respect to reasoning, it is impossible to reduce the act of reasoning to the things reasoned about. One is the activity, the other, the things which are active. Consider shuffling a deck of cards. You cannot describe the act of shuffling, as "composed" of the cards themselves. This would be a complete misunderstand of the act of shuffling, which is carried out by the hands which shuffle, rather than the cards themselves. The cards are what is shuffled. — Metaphysician Undercover

MU, can you shuffle with just your hands? You would be shuffling your hands, and in that case, would it be your arms doing the shuffling of your hands? Your hands are doing the action to the object. It just so happens that your hands are an object to. Your mind is processing the information. No information - no processing. How would you describe the process of reasoning without reasoning taking some form? How do you know that you are reasoning?

This is completely wrong. Memory is restricted to being about the past, that's what the word means, it relates to things remembered. If you are using "memory" in some other way, then it's a foreign word to us. When a computer makes a prediction, it is not the memory which is making the prediction. This paragraph is all wrong. — Metaphysician Undercover

Now you are just speaking from total ignorance. You need to educate yourself on all the different types of memory. Here's a start:
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/working%20memory
Working memory: memory that involves storing, focusing attention on, and manipulating information for a relatively short period of time (such as a few seconds).

The prediction happens in memory. Information has to be stored in working memory to be worked with. A computer or a human being can't work with long-term memory. Information is recalled from long-term memory to work on in working memory. This is how you can recall the past and think (process information) about the past in the present moment. This isn't much different than loading a video from your hard drive into RAM so that you can watch it. If you don't know much about computers, it seems like you are watching the video from your hard drive, but the hard drive is just another type of memory - long-term. Everything that happens on your computer screen is happening in working memory (RAM).

If you don't have a basic understanding of how a computer works, then you aren't going to understand. The computer is the best metaphor for the mind that we've had since we've started thinking about what the mind is.

I wonder where numbers are located. Silly question, of course - they have no location, as they’re abstractions. But nevertheless they’re real; the device on which this is being written depends on it. — Wayfarer

Silly post. If the device on which this is being written depends on the existence of numbers then numbers must be in the device for which it depends, just as this same device depends on electricity and wouldn't function without it, even with the existence of numbers (a program). You also wouldn't function without electricity.

If numbers are real, then they have causal powers. If they have causal powers then they have a location. From where and when was the cause - your mind, my mind, someone else's mind?

Oh, and philosophy is a science. The conclusions of one domain of investigation should not contradict those of another. ALL knowledge must be integrated.

"Sensory representations" is only a part of what's in the mind. There are also memories and anticipations. I agree that it doesn't make sense to talk about a mind existing without senses, but it also doesn't make sense to say that a "mind is composed of sensory representations".

This is most obviously wrong. Things anticipated are in your mind, and not in your past. So it is incorrect to reduce the mind to memory as you do here. And if this is really the basis of your judgement that my notion of "mind" is incorrect and incoherent, it appears like you have things reversed, because your notion of mind is obviously incorrect. — Metaphysician Undercover

And the other, crucial, ingredient, is reason. — Wayfarer

Memories and anticipations, AND the process of reasoning, are composed of colors, shapes, sounds, feelings, etc. ie sensory representations. What form does your anticipation take if not a visual of some future event? How do you know that you're reasoning at all if your reasoning doesn't take some form? What would you be reasoning about?

There is nothing about memory that restricts it to being in, or about, the past. Memory is simply information storage. There are different types of memory. Computers also have memory and are capable of making predictions/simulations/anticipations (they're the same thing) within their working memory. Memory can contain information about the past, near-present, or future. Is your mind presently attending the sunset as it happens in the near-past, or attending a more distant past sunset when you kissed your girlfriend, or attending a future sunset when you ask her to marry you? Memory can never contain information about the present as a result of how causation works. Effects are not their causes just as sensory representations are not the things they represent. The present will always be a prediction/anticipation/simulation.

Reasoning is simply following logical rules for thinking (processing information). Computers can do that to.

I don't like the "physical/material" or "mental/idea" terms. I simply call myself a monist, and find no reason to explain it further, or to use terms that have dualistic connotation because they stem from incorrect dualistic thinking.

I notice this, but that's something apprehended by my mind, not my senses. — Metaphysician Undercover

I don't understand. Your mind is composed of your sensory representations. What is your mind without them? Ideas, knowledge, beliefs, language - all are composed of sensory representations. What use is a mind without senses? Starfish and jellyfish seem to have senses without mind (no central nervous system). Can mind exist without senses?

I really don't think I can sense a similarity, because that requires an act of comparison, which is a mental activity. In your example there is a comparison with a prior time, and that requires memory. A difference on the other hand, is a relation between two things, so the difference itself, being a relation, is only one thing, and doesn't require a mental comparison to be perceived. — Metaphysician Undercover

Everything you experience is in the past. Your mind is in the past. Your mind is always a process of memory (working memory). I think your notion of "mind" is incorrect and incoherent and is what is leading to your misunderstanding.

First, we shouldn't assume that there is a "primary substance." Among other things, that (exact term) is linked to ideas that are pretty incoherent a la the Aristotelianism that some folks are seduced by around here.

If we're contrasting idealism with materialism, we're implying that idealism is positing stuff that isn't material. So obviously the difference would be that we're talking about material/physical stuff in the one case, and we're talking about immaterial/nonphysical stuff in the other case.

I've yet to encounter a notion of nonphysical stuff that's coherent, so I can't tell you much about what the properties of nonphysical stuff are supposed to be or how nonphysical stuff is supposed to function, but people who aren't physicalists assure me that they're not (just) positing physical stuff, they're positing something else (in addition if not instead) that's different than physical stuff.

We actually should be better cleaving terms like idealism, materialism, realism, etc., by the way, and specifying the historical contexts we're focusing on, since the conventional connotations of those terms have shifted over the years. — Terrapin Station

I can agree that "substance" itself is a questionable term.

I guess what I'm looking for is the the term we should use to refer to that constant that allows everything to interact and establish causal relationships between what we call "mind" and "matter". In this sense "mind" and "matter" are not the "primary substance", rather they are arrangements of the "primary substance".

"Both mind and matter are processes" doesn't imply dualism. — Terrapin Station

Exactly! Does this not imply that process is the "primary substance" (monism) and that matter and mind are simply different types of processes? Matter and mind are simply different arrangements of the "primary substance". "Process" and "information" are two terms I find useful in referring to that constant I just wrote about.

Sure. If we redefine matter as idea, I guess problem solved?

What are you talking about? — apokrisis

What would redefining matter (as the materialist defines it) as idea (as the idealist defines it) entail? If it doesn't matter what we call the primary substance, then why the debate for the past 1000 years?

It seems to me that the debate stems from our preliminary assumption of dualism and is solved through the realization of monism.

Berkeley replaces Locke's material substrata with a spiritual substances - minds. and material objects with ideas supported by minds. — Jamesk

For what purpose? What is a "spiritual" substance? How does a spiritual substance differ from a mental substance? I don't think you're paying attention to what I'm asking.

How do you perceive a thinking object? My mind is the 'thinking end' and you cannot form an idea of a mind. You can develop a notion of minds and of God, but that's not the same as an idea. Berkeley is on sticky ground at this point. Like I said demolishing materialism is easier than supporting immaterialism. — Jamesk

Of course I can form an idea of you mind. Every time you speak or submit a post, I form an idea of what is in your mind. I try to predict people's behavior and in doing so, I form an idea about the contents of their mind. Having ideas about other people's mind is one of the features that separates us from most other species.

I would say the major difference being that material objects have no causal powers we can know in which case we do not know what causes them.
Ideas also have no causal substance but we do know that they are caused by spirits with the infinite spirit doing most of the causing. — Jamesk

That last part there - you lost me.

Right, that's what I've been trying to explain to those people who have been suggesting that we could sense what the chair is made of, matter. We can't do that, we have to take our sensations, and put them into words through the means of ideas. We cannot sense what the chair is made of, be it wood, plastic, matter, or whatever. We sense differences, as you say, not what a thing is made of. — Metaphysician Undercover

I'll tell you what I told Apo, we don't sense just differences. We sense similarities as well. Have you ever held a piece of wood in your hand? Can you not notice the similarity between wood as it exists prior to being assembled into something like a chair, and the assembled product of a wooden chair?

Notice I'm using the term "wood", not "matter". It is the idealists and materialists that insist on using these other terms, "mind" and "matter". All they have done is create these new terms that no one really knows what they mean, and claimed that wood and chairs are either an "idea" or "matter".

Words are simply visual scribbles and sounds - something we access with our senses. So sensing what the chair is composed of is prior to having the goal of communicating what the chair is composed of. What are letters of the alphabet composed of? Would you know a letter of the alphabet without ever seeing one or hearing it's sound?

If we can't sense what the chair is made of, then how can we say that the chair is composed of ideas and not matter?

Is the chair composed of something? Does it matter what term we use to refer to that primary substance? What if we just simply used "primary substance?" If that is the case, then why did we have a debate for 1000s of years over what to call the primary substance (matter or mind)?

So you literally have no idea what the difference is between thinking that there can be matter that's not just an idea and thinking that there can be ideas that aren't matter? — Terrapin Station

I'm not talking about thinking what the case is. Thinking what the case is could be wrong.

What I am asking is if materialism or idealism were the case, then what would the actual difference be in the attributes of the primary substance? There should be some difference in how the primary substance actually is or functions if these two substances (matter and mind) are so different to cause this debate to go on for so long.

Why wouldn't an indirect realist be able to say the same thing? Matter may not actually be as it appears to us.

What I'm telling you is that I cannot look at the chair and tell you that it is made of wood, or that it is made of plastic without having some idea of what wood and what plastic are. — Metaphysician Undercover

I'm not asking you to tell me what the chair is composed of. I'm merely asking if you can make a distinction between different materials visually - without having to convert those distinctions into language to tell me what it is composed of. The difference isn't in the idea, but in how it actually appears and feels, and our words merely pointy to those distinctions.

Matter is an idea, but not all ideas are matter. — Metaphysician Undercover

what are ideas composed of if not matter or mind? Ideas can be about matter or about other things, but all ideas are composed of matter is what a realist would say.

The difference between ideas and matter is that ideas are mind dependent and matter supposedly is not. — Jamesk

So is the idealist saying that the primary substance is mind, not ideas? If so, then the question becomes, "what is the difference betweeen mind and matter?" Ideas would be matter-dependent or mind-dependant. Again, what is the difference?

At the end of the Dialogues he allows that the only real difference between the two is the materialists insistence that non-thinking objects or what you call material objects can exist without a mind that perceives them. — Jamesk

But we perceive thinking objects just as we perceive non-thinking objects. The difference lies in their behavior, not how they appear - as material objects. Both thinking and non-thinking objects are governed by the laws of physics (cause and effect).

For it to be naive realism, though, it has to not just be ideas that you're observing or that you believe exists. — Terrapin Station

It's what things are composed of that we are talking about. For the naive realist, ideas are composed of matter, so for the naive realist it is just matter that he observes and it is matter all the way down. For the idealist, it is only ideas that he observes and it is ideas all the way down. Again, what is the difference?

No, those are deductions made from observations. How would you sense that the chair is composed of wood, plastic, a seat, or legs? — Metaphysician Undercover

So you're telling me that you can't see the difference between a wooden chair and a plastic one? What is imitation wood if not the appearance of wood so that you can't visually distinguish between the plastic it is made of and actual wood?

It makes a lot of difference what words we use to refer to what things are made of.. Each word has its own meaning, and some claims are more easily justifiable than others. That the chair is composed of a seat and legs, or even that it is composed of wood or plastic, is much more easily justified than that it is composed of matter. The latter appears to be entirely speculative. — Metaphysician Undercover

Each word means what it refers to. What is the actual difference between ideas and matter?

That's why I asked what difference it makes what we call the thing everything is composed of.

How is ideas all the way down different from matter all the way down? The only difference between a naive realist and idealist is the word that they use to refer to what things are composed of. They both still believe that things are as they see it.

So you can't observe that the chair is composed of wood or platic, of a seat and legs? Again how do you know that you are looking at a chair if you can't say what it is composed of. Is every chair the same?

If solipsism/idealism is the case, then the chair only exists as an idea along with whatever it is composed of. In idealism, the chair really is made of wood and plastic - as you see it. (Indirect) Realism is the one that says the chair is not as you see it.

What difference does it make what word we use to refer to what things are composed of? Answer the question.

You philosophers like to argue over nonsense and/or throw together a bunch of words that don't mean anything, or are useless.

Idealism/solipsism is actually a type of naive realism. What you experience is actually how things are.

One cannot say that things are composed of ideas, for how would you distinguish one idea from another? Ideas themselves are composed of sensory impressions/representations. Yet ideas are different from an experience of the same thing. Is idea of your pet the same as your experience of your pet. The idea is vague, faded, and an overlay of the actual experience.

No one has ever sensed matter. We do not observe matter. The things we observe are objects like the chair, the table, and the various other objects we encounter. To say that these things are somehow composed of matter is to posit something we do not observe, matter, as a material substratum. — Metaphysician Undercover

When we see a chair, how do we not see what it is composed of? If we can't say what it is composed of, how can we even say that what we see is a chair?

The question is: does it even matter what word we use to say what the chair is composed of?

Predictable

All that exist are minds and ideas. The metaphysics of our minds and of God are beyond our understanding but Berkeley doesn't seem to imply that our minds are 'parts' of Gods mind. — Jamesk

No. That's what you implied when you said:

Objects exist independent of YOUR mind because they are always held in Gods mind. — Jamesk

Unfortunately because we can only know ideas, and minds are not ideas, we cannot really know anything about minds. We cannot form an idea of either our own minds or of God's. — Jamesk

Yet we do have ideas about other minds and of God's.

If minds are not ideas then minds are objects - material.

Nothing you have said falsifies anything I have said. You don't want to have a discussion. All you want to do is to continue to spout your fundamentalist claims and hope they stick to something.

You miss the point. God acts as the guarantor of all ideas. Objects exist independent of YOUR mind because they are always held in Gods mind.Again, intelligent beings do exist as minds / spirits and are mind independent. — Jamesk

Your explanation of "mind" is inconsistent. We can't be mind independent if we are part of another mind.

A better explanation is realism. There is a shared world that is represented in unique, yet similar, ways in unique, yet similar, minds.

You have to use the notion of realism - that there are external causes to your experiences, ie God - to prevent idealism from collapsing into solipsism.

The basic problem most people have, is that they imagine that what Berkeley is arguing means that ‘the world is all in my mind’. But if that were all he was saying, then nobody would have read his works, and there would be no debate — Wayfarer

Others reading his works and debating would all be ideas in his mind.

Idealism logically and inexorably leads to solipsism.

His argument could be better paraphrased as ‘all our knowledge of the world comprises ideas’ - that what we take to be independently existing objects are in actual fact ideas in the (not necessarily my) mind. It does sound incredible, but it is exactly that incredulity that Hylas, the sceptic in his dialogue, brings to Philonious, only to see all his apparently sensible objections refuted. — Wayfarer

This explanation isn't any better. All there are are ideas, not independently existing objects, like you and your internet forum post. "Your ideas" (your forum posts) only exist because they are my ideas.