To think that few people are capable of understanding idealism is to partake of the hubris of those who congratulate themselves that they can see something that others cannot; who like to think so because they like to think they have discovered an arcane secret difficult to divine. This comes out of a desire to inflate the importance of idealism. — John
It's consistent with taking science at face values which explains the universe's development from the Big Bang where there were no minds to star formation to Earth to simple life developing until finally we get to a point where you have complex nervous systems similar enough to our own to call it mind. — Marchesk
The one way around all that is to interpret QM so that it is consciousness which collapses the possible universes into one with the history we observe. Humans or before us, animals, or aliens, or whatever mind collapsed it, it was just a giant probability wave, or something like that. — Marchesk
since we don't know what it could mean for objects to be ultimately materially constituted; I don't think it means much. — John
Idealism can make one feel omniscient. "I know all there is to know. If I do not know a thing, it is because I have not experienced it, and it does not exist. Are there any things I do not know? Where are they?" — Real Gone Cat
So what is behind the order of the universe? — Wayfarer
. I need not be infinite to inhabit all of existence. But if I inhabit all of existence, am I not then immortal? — Real Gone Cat
I think many people hold materialist views without thinking through what they really mean. — Wayfarer
Personally, I don't believe one or the other, per se, is more or less conducive to, or associated with, spirituality; — John
The problem I see for what you are claiming is that philosophical idealism was not formulated as such until Berkeley; so it will always be controversial as to whether philosophers prior to that were idealists. — John
Also the "insight into the mind" you refer to I suspect is largely dependent on the science of perception; which is a realist analysis — John
What idealist philosophers do you have in mind when you say idealism is more strongly associated with spirituality than realism? — John
None of the philosophers you have mentioned were notably spiritual, — John
Plato is one of the first philosophers to discuss what might be termed Idealism, although his Platonic Idealism is, confusingly, usually referred to as Platonic Realism. This is because, although his doctrine described Forms or universals (which are certainly non-material "ideals" in a broad sense), Plato maintained that these Forms had their own independent existence, which is not an idealist stance, but a realist one. However, it has been argued that Plato believed that "full reality" (as distinct from mere existence) is achieved only through thought, and so he could be described as a non-subjective, "transcendental" idealist, somewhat like Kant.
Even the notion of 'mind only" in Yogacara is subject to interpretation. — John
Knowledge is of the body/mind and is also a function of the body/mind. You can't have one without the other; mind without body or body without mind makes no sense. — John
Platonic number theorists believe that number is real and not material, i.e. a real idea. — Wayfarer
Plato was certainly no idealist, as he thought the world of the forms was the real world and he certainly did not think it was dependent on the mind, human or otherwise. Rather the reverse in fact. Plotinus maybe although he did not speak in terms of mind, but in terms of "the One"., from which all reality emanates. — John
If all existence is infinite then you would need to be infinite to inhabit it, or so it would seem. — John
I think many people hold materialist views without thinking through what they really mean. — Wayfarer
I would guess Plato was realist about matter being something. It was the various particulars, which were imperfect imitations of the forms, right? — Marchesk
. It seems that one who has experienced such an epiphany (i.e., embracing idealism) should desire to help others achieve it as well. — Real Gone Cat
I think you're defining 'idealist' differently to me. — Wayfarer
I think the one central tenet of any form of idealism is that being is intrinsically mental — John
But in the context of the Western philosophical tradition, there is indeed a primary distinction between materialists philosophies and idealist philosophies. — Wayfarer
One of the names for that school is 'cittamatra'. Cittamatra is Sanskrit for 'mind only'. It is not ambiguous. — Wayfarer
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