Everything we know points to mind (as an activity) being dependent on non-mind, on material existence/ existents. — Janus

From a perspective outside both, treating mind as an observed phenomena, which we can't actually do, as we're not outside it.

It is the fact that humanity has been mesmerized by a futile search for absolute meaning — Janus

Nothing other than an expression of your own belief, or unbelief.

From a perspective outside both, treating mind as an observed phenomena, which we can't actually do, as we're not outside it. — Wayfarer

To say we are "inside" mind is to beg the question. We don't experience ourselves as being inside a mind, but as being inside a body which is inside the world. We don't experience our minds as being radically free or absolute but as being constrained and contingent upon our bodies, which are themselves dependent on physical resources: air, water, food, and conditions: principally gravity and light.

There are many things we cannot observe, simply because they are not observable phenomena; for example, digestion, respiration, metabolism and the precognitive interactions between body and world.

Nothing other than an expression of your own belief, or non-belief. — Wayfarer

If you look at the general history of human culture it is fairly clear that humanity has been labouring under the "aegis of tutelage", fixated by the idea that there must be some absolute authority or lawgiver. The horrific crimes against humanity which such absolutism has given rise to are hardly questionable. although of course it is possible to bury one's head in the sand in denial.

Everything we know points to mind (as an activity) being dependent on non-mind, on material existence/ existents.
— Janus

From a perspective outside both, treating mind as an observed phenomena, which we can't actually do, as we're not outside it. — Wayfarer

We are outside the minds of other people. Do you think that we can learn about the workings of other people's minds by observation of their behavior? Doesn't your statement amount to saying psychology is impossible?

From a perspective outside both, treating mind as an observed phenomena, which we can't actually do, as we're not outside it. — Wayfarer

Not true, Wayf. You forget language – each of us is always "outside" of each other's "mind" – thus the emergent, grammatical-symbolic commons that both facilitates and obscures our shared mentalities, or this cultural media. Yes, we cannot get "outside" of our own minds, but, as a baseline, each of us unavoidably "observes" the effects of others' minds and lives responding accordingly to their activities.

We don't experience ourselves as being inside a mind, but as being inside a body which is inside the world. We don't experience our minds as being radically free or absolute but as being constrained and contingent upon our bodies ... — Janus

:up:

We are outside the minds of other people. — wonderer1

:up:

Everything we know points to mind (as an activity) being dependent on non-mind, on material existence/ existents. — Janus

:100: :up:

There are two understandings of nihilism: Nietzsche understood Christianity, and any notion of revelation, of received or imposed meaning, as being nihilistic in the sense that it nihilates the radical human capacity for creating meaning.

:scream: Dionysus versus the Crucified.

On the other hand, nihilism in the positive sense is simply the lack of received/ imposed meaning which grants to humanity a great freedom and creativity,

:fire: Amor fati.

We are outside the minds of other people. Do you think that we can learn about the workings of other people's minds by observation of their behavior? Doesn't your statement amount to saying psychology is impossible? — wonderer1

Cognitive science and psychology are indeed ways of studying the workings of consciousness in the third person, but philosophy of mind is a different matter. With respect to the empirical sciences, I acknowledge that

there is no need for me to deny that the Universe is real independently of your mind or mine, or of any specific, individual mind. Put another way, it isempirically true that the Universe exists independently of any particular mind. But what we know of its existence is inextricably bound by and to the mind we have, and so, in that sense, reality is not straightforwardly objective. It is not solely constituted by objects and their relations. Reality has an inextricably mental aspect, which itself is never revealed in empirical analysis.

But that mental aspect is not 'out there somewhere'. I don't depict it as a 'mind-at-large' or 'divine intelligence'. It's simply how the mind orders sensations, perceptions and experience in such a way as to sythesise a coherent whole, which is 'the world'. That is what we are never 'outside of' or 'apart from'. (See It Is Never Known But It Is the Knower, Michel Bitbol, Academia)

From which:

As soon as you think about something that is independent of thought, this something is no longer independent of thought! As soon as you try to imagine something that is independent of experience, you have an experience of it - not necessarily the sensory experience of it, but some sort of experience (imagination, concept, idea, etc.). The natural conclusion of this little thought experiment is that there is nothing completely independent of experience. But this creeping, all-pervasive presence of experience is the huge unnoticed fact of our lives. Nobody seems to care about it. Few people seem to realize that even the wildest speculations about what the universe was like during the first milliseconds after the Big Bang are still experiences. Most scientists rather argue that the Big Bang occurred as an event long before human beings existed in the universe. They can claim that, of course, but only from within the standpoint of their own present experience

Ironically, then, omnipresence of experience is tantamount to its absence. Experience is obvious; it is everywhere at this very moment. There is nothing apart from experience. Even when you think of past moments in which you do not remember having had any experience, this is still an experience, a present experience of thinking about them. But this background of immediate experience goes unnoticed because there is nothing with which to contrast it.This was well understood by Ludwig Wittgenstein, probably the most clear-headed philosopher of the twentieth century. One of my favourite quotes of Wittgenstein's is this one: "[Conscious experience] is not a something, but not a nothing either! (from Philosophical Investigations) — Michel Bitbol

The perceptive reader will notice the resonance with Advaita Vedanta, and indeed Bitbol acknowledges this with a reference at the beginning of the talk.

This was well understood by Ludwig Wittgenstein, probably the most clear-headed philosopher of the twentieth century. One of my favourite quotes of Wittgenstein's is this one: "[Conscious experience] is not a something, but not a nothing either! (from Philosophical Investigations) — Michel Bitbol

Of course this is true, and also true of digestion, respiration, metabolism, abstraction, conceptualization, visualization and other bodily processes.

While still the human breaths the spectral homunculus looms forever...

We are outside the minds of other people. Do you think that we can learn about the workings of other people's minds by observation of their behavior? Doesn't your statement amount to saying psychology is impossible? — wonderer1

There are approaches within psychology which argue that
‘mind’ is not an inside set off against an outside, but an inseparable interaction, a system of coordinations with an environment in which what constitutes the perceiving (the inside) and the perceived environment ( the outside) are defined and changed by their reciprocal interaction. Because as individuals embodied and embedded in the world we are already outside ourselves in this way, there is no radical distinction between perceiving ourselves ( we come back to ourselves from the world) and perceiving others.
Mind is thus treated no differently than organism , which has no true ‘inside’ given they it is nothing but a system of interactions with an environment it defines on the basis of its normative way of functioning. But neither is there a true ‘outside’. So this modifies Wayfarer’s idealism somewhat into a play better the ideal and the real in which neither side has priority.

kinda like Alva Noë?

So this modifies Wayfarer’s idealism somewhat into a play better the ideal and the real in which neither side has priority. — Joshs

This play is undoubtedly characteristic of the ways in which we conceive of human perception, experience and judgement. Do you want to suggest that it has an actuality beyond that?

Wayfarer is a property-owning householder with material possessions and family responsibilities. So I probably don't fit into your stereotyped image of what 'an idealist' must be, whatever that is. — Wayfarer

It has nothing to do with "stereotypes", but with considering the (practical) implications of an idealist stance.
It seems your stance would be more correctly described as psychological and ethical normativism, rather than an idealism.



From some two years ago:

https://pathpress.org/appearance-and-existence/

Thanks, very interesting page and site. I will take some time to try and absorb that. — Wayfarer

Have you looked into it?

For a puthujjana the world exists.

So you know things exist and you don't need a mind for knowing that?
— baker

The point is this: being a mind that is 'aware of being-a-mind-among-other-minds' (ergo finitude) presupposes 'mind-independent nonmind'. In other words, to say that 'existence is mind-dependent' entails 'the nonexistence of mind' (via infinite regress: mind dependent on mind dependent on mind dependent on ...) which is self-refuting. — 180 Proof

Wayfarer said:

Basically, I'm simply arguing that whatever exists, always exists for some mind. The sense in which it exists without reference to a mind is simply unintelligible and incoherent. That is the mistake that creeps in for mistaking the assumption of mind-independence, which is all very well within the context of science, for a metaphysical principle, which it is not. — Wayfarer

You're ignoring the bolded part.

Simply put, in order for there to be knowledge that something exists, a mind is needed. Knowledge of existence is a mental thing.

Existence just is the case — 180 Proof

And a mind is needed to make such a declaration.

Everything we know points to mind (as an activity) being dependent on non-mind, on material existence/ existents. — Janus

This is a very common axiomatic claim.

Mind is thus treated no differently than organism , which has no true ‘inside’ given they it is nothing but a system of interactions with an environment it defines on the basis of its normative way of functioning. — Joshs

What do you mean here by "normative"?

You're ignoring the bolded part. — baker

I ignore mere assertions (bolded or not) which lack argument or evidence to warrant them.

Existence just is the case.
— 180 Proof

And a mind is needed to make such a
declaration.

That seems ass-backwards to me, baker. "A mind" presupposes existence whether or not a "declaration" is made – whether or not it's "known something exists".

That seems ass-backwards to me, baker. "A mind" presupposes existence whether a "declaration" is made or not. — 180 Proof

Thats's because you _take for granted_ that

"Everything we know points to mind (as an activity) being dependent on non-mind, on material existence/ existents."

You work with _axioms_, but ignore/deny doing so.

Apparently, neither of us know what you are talking about ... I'm going to bed. :yawn:

This play is undoubtedly characteristic of the ways in which we conceive of human perception, experience and judgement. Do you want to suggest that it has an actuality beyond that? — Janus

Yes. Every aspect of the world interacts with every other such that no laws , rules or fixities constrain it. Instead, interactions produce new interactions which produce new interactions. The cosmos is in the business of reinventing its past constantly. The ideality of this continual self-creation does not depend on the mind of a human subject. We are simply a participant in it, but a participant who can rapidly reinvent worlds. The fact that there are no laws constraining future possibilities on the basis of a fixed in place history does not mean change and becoming means chaos and arbitrariness. On the contrary, we live in natural and social circumstances of relative stability and familiarity. One does not need a universe of already fixed properties in order to be able to anticipate new events.

We don't experience ourselves as being inside a mind, but as being inside a body which is inside the world. We don't experience our minds as being radically free or absolute but as being constrained and contingent upon our bodies — Janus

This is indeed a very common belief about how we exist, especially in Western cultures. It's how we are often taught to think of ourselves and to take such thinking for granted.

If you look at the general history of human culture it is fairly clear that humanity has been labouring under the "aegis of tutelage", fixated by the idea that there must be some absolute authority or lawgiver. The horrific crimes against humanity which such absolutism has given rise to are hardly questionable. although of course it is possible to bury one's head in the sand in denial.

As if your're not fixated by this same idea that there must be some absolute authority or lawgiver; it's just that your particular idea of this absolute authority or lawgiver is different than some other people's.
Not having such an idea would probably make one insane.

This is a very common axiomatic claim. — baker

It's not an axiomatic claim but an inference to what seems to me to be the best explanation.

This is indeed a very common belief about how we exist, especially in Western cultures. It's how we are often taught to think of ourselves and to take such thinking for granted. — baker

No, not simply a common belief, but a reflection on how we (or at least I) actually experience things.

As if your're not fixated by this same idea that there must be some absolute authority or lawgiver; it's just that your particular idea of this absolute authority or lawgiver is different than some other people's.
Not having such an idea would probably make one insane. — baker

I'm not fixated on the idea of an absolute authority or lawgiver, I'm simply commenting on what is uncontroversially the case regarding the atrocities that have been committed in the name of absolute authority.

Not having such an idea of absolute authority might make you insane—I can't comment on that except to say you should speak only for yourself or others who have confirmed your bias in reference to themselves.

Yes. Every aspect of the world interacts with every other such that no laws , rules or fixities constrain it. Instead, interactions produce new interactions which produce new interactions. The cosmos is in the business of reinventing its past constantly. The ideality of this continual self-creation does not depend on the mind of a human subject. We are simply a participant in it, but a participant who can rapidly reinvent worlds. The fact that there are no laws constraining future possibilities on the basis of a fixed in place history does not mean change and becoming means chaos and arbitrariness. On the contrary, we live in natural and social circumstances of relative stability and familiarity. One does not need a universe of already fixed properties in order to be able to anticipate new events. — Joshs

If you are denying that we observe countless regularities and invariances in the world then I think you have your eyes firmly shut. If that is not what you are saying, then I have no idea what it is you do want to say.

There are approaches within psychology which argue that
‘mind’ is not an inside set off against an outside, but an inseparable interaction, a system of coordinations with an environment in which what constitutes the perceiving (the inside) and the perceived environment ( the outside) are defined and changed by their reciprocal interaction. Because as individuals embodied and embedded in the world we are already outside ourselves in this way, there is no radical distinction between perceiving ourselves ( we come back to ourselves from the world) and perceiving others.
Mind is thus treated no differently than organism , which has no true ‘inside’ given they it is nothing but a system of interactions with an environment it defines on the basis of its normative way of functioning. But neither is there a true ‘outside’. So this modifies Wayfarer’s idealism somewhat into a play better the ideal and the real in which neither side has priority. — Joshs

I hold a somewhat similar view, however I'd say there is a lack of nuance to the following:

...there is no radical distinction between perceiving ourselves ( we come back to ourselves from the world) and perceiving others. — Joshs

I wouldn't use the adjective "radical", but there certainly are distinctions between our perceptions of ourselves and our perception of others. Furthermore, understanding the bigger scientific picture, allows us to recognize and take such distinctions into account in a more informed way.

Sticking specifically to perception, the way we hear own voices is typically through bone conduction. Similarly, the way we see ourselves is typically mirror imaged. Now of course these days we can take out our phones and record ourselves on video, and to a degree mitigate those differences between first and third person perception, but there are all sorts of such distinctions to be recognized.

From here. I will try and respond to this here because it is more relevant to this thread than to the one from which it originated.

If the physical is naturally understood to have substantial or substantive existence, and it is upon that idea of substance that the notion of reality is founded, and the idea of a mental substance is untenable, then what justification would we have for saying that anything non-physical is real?

The alternative to eliminative physicalism would be to say that mental phenomena are real functions of some physical existents, and that the only sense in which they are not physical is that they do not (obviously) appear as objects of the senses. — Janus

I think what you mean by 'substantial' and 'substantive' is 'tangible' and/or 'measurable'. Those are the empirical criteria for what is considered to exist.

There are many things that could be said, but as the question originated in a thread about Descartes, it might be noted at the outset that the idea of 'substance' and 'substantial' in philosophy is not an empirical one. Rather it originates with Aristotelian/Platonic metaphysics, wherein 'substance' was 'a thing whose existence is independent of that of all other things, or a thing from which or out of which other things are made or in which other things inhere' (Brittanica. It is, of course, true, that the classical idea of substance has fallen out of favour except for with adherents of Thomism and perhaps other modern forms of hylomorphism, for which see this daunting index.)

That said, I think that the traditional notion of substance became associated with, or displaced by, the objects of physics, as a part of the 'Scientific Revolution'. After all, the hallmark of the 'new science' was (1) the identification of the 'primary attributes' of matter as the principle subject-matter of physics and (2) the supposedly universal scope of the new physics (i.e. Galilean-Newtonian) to all such objects of analysis. This leads to the paradigm that I also quoted in the thread from which this query originated:

The modern mind-body problem arose out of the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century, as a direct result of the concept of objective physical reality that drove that revolution. Galileo and Descartes made the crucial conceptual division by proposing that physical science should provide a mathematically precise quantitative description of an external reality extended in space and time, a description limited to spatiotemporal primary qualities such as shape, size, and motion, and to laws governing the relations among them. Subjective appearances, on the other hand -- how this physical world appears to human perception -- were assigned to the mind, and the secondary qualities like color, sound, and smell were to be analyzed relationally, in terms of the power of physical things, acting on the senses, to produce those appearances in the minds of observers. It was essential to leave out or subtract subjective appearances and the human mind -- as well as human intentions and purposes -- from the physical world in order to permit this powerful but austere spatiotemporal conception of objective physical reality to develop. (Mind and Cosmos, Pp35-36) — Thomas Nagel, Mind and Cosmos, Pp 35-36

I am proposing in this OP, that this amounts to more than just a theoretical paradigm - it's also a worldview, and one which is essentially the default view of secular, scientifically-informed culture. I also claim that an implicit assumption of this worldview is the 'subject-object' relationship - it takes for granted or assumes our status as intelligent subjects existing in a world of objects (and other subjects). Within that paradigm, 'objectivity' is the criterion for what is real or existent; what is 'objectively true' is what 'exists when you stop believing in it', as Philip K. Dick put it.

Here, this point is relevant:

...physics reveals a physical world that is almost completely insubstantial. "Substantial" and "real" have a meaning in the context of physics, but not one that meets the demands of this philosophical wild-goose chase. Berkeley was wrong about many things, but about this, he was right. — Ludwig V

With which I agree. I take his main point to be a reference to the well-known 'observer problem' in quantum physics, which has undermined the whole idea of the 'mind-independent reality' of the objects of quantum physics, although I don't want to go into the whole 'interpretations of physics' tangle.

So what I was arguing in the other thread is that a consequence of Cartesian dualism is to depict mind (res cogitans) as something that exists within this subject-object paradigm, which is the scientific paradigm, and which is the only one we know or are confident of. The question becomes, how do you demonstrate or prove the existence of such a 'thinking thing'? Why, you can't! It's a specious concept. So what are we left with? The other half of Descartes' duality, namely, res extensia, extended matter, which Modern Science has proven so extraordinarily adept at analyzing and manipulating. (This is the sense in which I agree with Ryle's categorisation of Descartes' error as a category mistake, although I don't accept his remedy.)

Mind is not something that exists in this paradigm, except for as a product of the brain, an epiphenomenon, or an emergent attribute of what really does exist - which is the physical. That I see as the common-sense, mainstream view (which eliminativism takes to the most extreme, but also most consistent, position.)

This is why the argument in the OP says that an alternative to this view is a perspectival shift, a different way of seeing, which also turns out to be a different way of being. I'm pretty much in agreement with Bernardo Kastrup's analytical idealism in that regard, but it's really important to understand that this doesn't mean establishing that mind is something objectively existent.

It was essential to leave out or subtract subjective appearances and the human mind -- as well as human intentions and purposes -- from the physical world i

And by 1788 we get Legrange's Analytical Mechanics boasting that it has no diagrams, only algebraic equations, because these involve less of the human sensory system in the understanding of mechanics and so are more objective. Ontic structural realism, things just being the math that describes them, seems like the terminus point for this trend.

I recall hearing a story about John Wheeler posing a question about "what do you get when you write down all the laws of physics, all the most beautiful equations we've discovered?"

"A bunch of chalk on a blackboard, not a universe."

Which I guess was his lead in for pitching "if from bit," and the participatory universe idea. The idea of the first concept being that you need some real ontological difference, not just math, to explain the world.

A bunch of chalk on a blackboard, not a universe. — Count Timothy von Icarus

True - but that said, it is remarkable that the equations of general relativity can be captured on a single piece of paper. I don't think Thomas Nagel (or myself) wants to deprecate the astonishing reach of mathematical physics, so much as to point to what it assumes, and what it leaves out. Mind you, Wheeler's 'participatory universe' is one of the ways that these kinds of reflections became apparent from within science itself.

I think what you mean by 'substantial' and 'substantive' is 'tangible' and/or 'measurable'. Those are the empirical criteria for what is considered to exist. — Wayfarer

In the other thread I said this, which I think answers your question:

It depends on what you mean by 'substantial'; if you mean something like "tangible' then sure. Is mass fundamental in physics, specifically in QM?

If what is is fundamentally energetic, then that is what I would mean by "physical". Is there an alternative view to this?

I wouldn't say they are "empirical criteria for what is considered to exist" so much as they are words denoting what is directly empirically available to us, that it is what it thus available to us and that the notions of real, actual, substantial and tangible denote this availability. How can we apply a term like 'real' to something which is not observable, at least in its physical or perceptible manifestations?

So, for example, mental activity (considered as being something distinct from neural activity) is not directly observable. but its; physical effects and correlates may be. So, I see no problem with saying that mental activity is physical, even though it is not a directly observable object of the senses. If we want to say that mental activity is non-physical or immaterial, I think we should first be able to answer the question as to what we could even mean by immaterial (beyond the obvious "not an object of the senses").

To say that mental activity is not physical, and hence does not exist, and yet is somehow real seems incoherent to me, because it seems impossible to explain what could be meant by that. In what sense could it be thought to be real if it truly is non-physical or immaterial?

Ontic structural realism, things just being the math that describes them, seems like the terminus point for this trend. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I could be mistaken but my understanding of the term "ontic structural realism" is more in line with saying that what is real are the relations that are described by the math, not that those relations just are the math.

If those relations are energetic (which it seems all but the most abstract or merely conceptual relations must be) then the real can still be understood to be substantial, since energy is measurable.

I'm sorry I have ignored this for so long. It got swept away in all the other stuff that's going on.

Start with the 17th century:-

Subjective appearances, on the other hand -- how this physical world appears to human perception -- were assigned to the mind, and the secondary qualities like color, sound, and smell were to be analyzed relationally, in terms of the power of physical things, acting on the senses, to produce those appearances in the minds of observers. — Thomas Nagel, Mind and Cosmos, Pp 35-36

That's all fine. I'm not sure whether they realized that they were just kicking the can down the road. Mathematics can't explain colour and sound, so we'll classify them as subjective - just like the God of the gaps. OK. The tactic worked - in spades. The problem is that colours and sounds got lumped in together with hallucinations and dreams, beauty and goodness; and no-one troubled to analyze all this and draw proper distinctions. So now we are facing a "hard problem" that appears to have no solution. The framework that establishes the problem has to go.

With which I agree. I take his main point to be a reference to the well-known 'observer problem' in quantum physics, which has undermined the whole idea of the 'mind-independent reality' of the objects of quantum physics, although I don't want to go into the whole 'interpretations of physics' tangle. — Wayfarer

Yes, it was. But there's another aspect to this. When the physicists banished colour and sound from their theories, they forgot, or chose to ignore, the fact that their experiments and observations were conducted in the ordinary world in which colours and sounds are inextricably part of what we observe (and the point that Berkeley makes, that colour and shape (space) are inextricably linked.) If colours and sounds are not objective how can the science which proves them be objective? (Sense-data/ideas won't do the job. Ordinary common sense experience of independently existing objects in the objective world is essential.)

The question becomes, how do you demonstrate or prove the existence of such a 'thinking thing'? Why, you can't! It's a specious concept. So what are we left with? The other half of Descartes' duality, namely, res extensia, extended matter, which Modern Science has proven so extraordinarily adept at analyzing and manipulating. — Wayfarer

I don't quite understand this; surely Descartes had no idea about the existence of his own mind? But there is something in what you say. We do tend to leave ourselves with no alternative but to "reduce" everything to physics (except the observer, of course). But when you define matter and mind in relation to each other, you cannot abolish mind without reviewing and reshaping matter.
(I'm resisting the temptation to chase your remark about Ryle. But I'm afraid it will prove too much for my head to contain.)

I am proposing in this OP, that this amounts to more than just a theoretical paradigm - it's also a worldview, and one which is essentially the default view of secular, scientifically-informed culture. I also claim that an implicit assumption of this worldview is the 'subject-object' relationship — Wayfarer

I think the subject-object format has deeper roots than 17th century science. It is embedded in language (or at least the languages we are familiar with) but it is more than just a grammatical quirk; it affects everything we think. What we tend to forget is that every object can also be a subject, so that there is no logical gap, or gap of any sort, between the two. Most of the time, this is not particularly problematic. But it does get confusing when self-reference creeps in. That's why things get so hard when the observer becomes the observed.
Related to this is the idea of a point of view. A point of view is not included in the field of view, but defines the scope of what can be seen. It is an abstract concept - a location in space - which can be occupied by any observer (though not by all at the same time).It has geometrical existence, but not physical existence. It can be used in all sorts of metaphorical ways, many of which are helpful.

None of this connects to the subjective/objective distinction in the pejorative sense that "there is no disputing about tastes". It may connect to conceptual developments in the 17th and 18th centuries - the concept of the individual and so forth - but it doesn't connect in any way that makes sense to me to anything I've discussed so far.

This is why the argument in the OP says that an alternative to this view is a perspectival shift, a different way of seeing, which also turns out to be a different way of being. — Wayfarer

Quite likely. But there will be continuity as well.

This is why the argument in the OP says that an alternative to this view is a perspectival shift, a different way of seeing, which also turns out to be a different way of being. — Wayfarer

I don't have much to add to this long-running discussion of Mental vs Physical priority. So, I'll just post a few thoughts stimulated by the OP.

BTW, my personal "perspectival shift" resulted, not from heart-felt religious motives, or rational philosophical arguments, or "hard" scientific evidence, but from the mundane paradigm shift of 20th century quantum theory. It was not a sudden "voice of god" conviction, but a gradual dawning of realization of the essential role of Sentience & Reason in our worldviews. Not to create a physical world from scratch, but to create a metaphysical model of the world that we sense (feel) and make-sense of (comprehend).

Some seem to think that Idealism means that Reality is imaginary, or that Subjective views are solipsistic, hence suspect. Yet my BothAnd perspective is wide-angle enough to see some truth in all of the above. Materialism is our common-sense perception of reality, but Idealism extends our sixth-sense of Reason, to construct a metaphysical conception of what lies beyond our enhanced physical senses, in the near-infinite Cosmic ceiling above, and the infinitesimal Sub-atomic foundation of reality. :smile:

The following is not a numbered argument, but merely foot-notes to establish a trail of my personal understanding. Quotes are from the Mind-Created World OP :

1. "The second objection is against the notion that the mind, or ‘mind-stuff’, is literally a type of constituent out of which things are made,"
Note --- In my information-based worldview, Mind-stuff is not a material substance, but more like a causal force --- the power to transform --- in the sense of E=MC^2, where causal Energy is equated with massy Matter, by means of logical Mathematics. There are no aggregating atoms of Energy, only a continuous trend of change in both Space and Time.

2. "To think about the existence of a particular thing in polar terms — that it either exists or does not exist — is a simplistic view of what existence entails. This is why the criticism of idealism that ‘particular things must go in and out of existence depending on whether they’re perceived’ is mistaken."
Note --- Instead of a bi-polar view, my personal perspective is intended to be stereoscopic, wherein opposing views are merged & blended into a single model of Reality, inclusive of both Mind and Matter. The iffy existence of Ideal vs Real makes Being seem to be contingent on polar perspectives. That may sound like Limbo, neither saved nor unsaved, but undecided. Or like quantum Uncertainty, a state of subjective knowledge that is neither true nor false : indeterminacy.
But to me, it seems more like a Holistic state in which the parts are dissolved (like salt) into the oceanic system. Quantum Entanglement can be viewed as a Holistic state, in which the inter-twined component parts are unknowable (Uncertain) as separate entities. So, the "existence" --- that reality goes in and out of --- is also a state of knowledge (known/unknown), from the perspective of the observer. As postulated by Berkeley, only an omniscient observer would know all possible states of "existence" (being).

3. "Let me address an obvious objection. ‘Surely “the world” is what is there all along, what is there anyway, regardless of whether you perceive it or not!"
Note --- According to Plato & Aristotle, "what is there all along" is Eternity, not ever-changing Space-Time. The Eternal realm is self-existent, not dependent on observers, whether subjective or objective. But the Contingent world, as demonstrated in Quantum experiments, is somewhat dependent on the perspective of the observer. For example, Einstein's Theory of Relativity divided reality into Special (particular) and General (universal). Only an omniscient view from outside of the material world could encompass all states of Being, in & out of space-time. Apparently, Einstein was trying to simulate a universal divine perspective, to "know the mind of god", as Hawking put it.

4. "This in turn leads to the over-valuation of objectivity as the sole criterion for truth."
Note --- Science aspires to absolute Objectivity. But, in practice, only calculates the mean values of multiple subjective views. That computed average is supposed to cancel-out all extreme views, as well as personal emotional commitments, such as religious faith. Let's not deceive ourselves that physical Science actually achieves its noble aspiration of Absolute Objectivity, by eliminating personal biases, emotions, and false beliefs. It is still groping to meld isolated observations (experiments) into a singular summary of Truth. When physical science expands into philosophical territory, by studying Psychology and Sociology, the shortcomings of its matter-based methods become apparent.

5. "By ‘creating reality’, I’m referring to the way the brain receives, organises and integrates cognitive data, along with memory and expectation, so as to generate the unified world–picture within which we situate and orient ourselves."
Note --- The individual human mind "creates" an imaginary model of reality. The scientific method merges multiple particular models into a collective consensus of verified Facts and acceptable Generalizations. Yet, even the consensual model continues to evolve over time, in evolutionary paradigm shifts. So, like chasing Infinity, we can only strive to come Closer to Truth. We don't create Truth, we learn it as best we can.

6. "By investing the objective domain with a mind-independent status, as if it exists independently of any mind, we absolutize it."
Note --- To "absolutize" is to generalize and universalize the various partial understandings of independent minds. The current generally-accepted scientific/philosophical model, a political consensus of many opinions, may be our best approximation to absolute Truth, at that point in time. So, a synergetic hypothesis of Reality may be as close to a "mind independent" worldview as possible. Yet, as philosophers, our job is to refine our received reality-model, to weed-out any remaining blind-spots, such as the various conventions & presumptions (-isms) that remain in circulation. Materialistic Scientism is one such metaphysical belief system, imagined as the final arbiter of physical Truth.

What we tend to forget is that every object can also be a subject, — Ludwig V

How so? Subjects are invariably sentient beings are they not? Tables and chairs and billiard balls are objects, but how are they subjects of experience? Isn’t saying that a version of panpsychism?

now we are facing a "hard problem" that appears to have no solution. The framework that establishes the problem has to go. — Ludwig V

Precisely!

I don't quite understand this — Ludwig V

What I meant was that Descartes, in dividing the two substances, material and mental, placed them side-by-side, as it were. And whilst any of us can see and interact with material substance, the existence of ‘res cogitans’ is conjectural, and the proposed ‘interaction’ between the two ‘substances’ problematic. It sets the stage for the elimination of the mental, which is basically what subsequently developed, most directly expressed by ‘eliminativism’.

This criticism is not novel to me, by the way. As I mentioned in another thread, it’s also related to what Husserl said about Descartes, even while crediting him as the founder of transcendental philosophy.

Not to create a physical world from scratch, but to create a metaphysical model of the world that we sense (feel) and make-sense of (comprehend). — Gnomon

Notice the duality you introduce between model and world.

The realization that prompted this essay is basically that of the primacy of experience - but unlike much empiricist philosophy, without bifurcating the domain of experience into subjective and objective. You and I have both read Charles Pinter’s book Mind and the Cosmic Order which I think supports a similar view.

How so? Subjects are invariably sentient beings are they not? Tables and chairs and billiard balls are objects, but how are they subjects of experience? Isn’t saying that a version of panpsychism? — Wayfarer

I'm sorry. A misunderstanding. I thought your reference to the subject/object relationship was to subject and object in the general, grammatical sense. But, of course, I should have remembered that logic describes this in the more general format of subject/predicate. However, tables etc can be subject - of pictures, investigations, conversations, etc. They can also, in ordinary language, do things like blocking fire exits, squashing fruit, supporting vases, etc. Equally, a human being can stand in the object-place in a sentence, being looked at, rather than looking, being pushed, rather than pushing and in general being objectified. Self-awareness seems to screw this model up, but given how this all works, I don't see why one shouldn't simply say that self-awareness involves objectifying oneself, imagining one is looking at oneself.

And whilst any of us can see and interact with material substance, the existence of ‘res cogitans’ is conjectural, and the proposed ‘interaction’ between the two ‘substances’ problematic. — Wayfarer

I thought the point of the cogito that was that is the one thing that we cannot doubt, and classical epistemology regards self-knowledge (which was always of the mind) was the only thing, apart from logic, of which we could be certain and which was therefore the foundation of epistemology.

From your original post:-

Now picture the same scene — but from no point of view. Imagine that you are perceiving such a science from every possible point within it, and also around it. Then also subtract from all these perspectives, any sense of temporal continuity — any sense of memory of the moment just past, and expectation of the one about to come. Having done that, describe the same scene. — Wayfarer

That's certainly true, but a point of view is an abstract, context-dependent concept, not at all the same as a conscious person. However, "I" is more like "a point of view" in that it has no content, being constructed in the same sort of way as a point of view.

A corollary of this is that ‘existence’ is a compound or complex idea. To think about the existence of a particular thing in polar terms — that it either exists or does not exist — is a simplistic view of what existence entails. — Wayfarer

Yes, that is quite right. But "exists" doesn't really tolerate half-way houses, so we have to talk of modes of existence or maybe categories, which gives a pluralist world, which is much more appropriate than monist, dualist or any other set number.

By ‘creating reality’, I’m referring to the way the brain receives, organises and integrates cognitive data, along with memory and expectation, so as to generate the unified world–picture within which we situate and orient ourselves. — Wayfarer

I don't believe our world-view is unified, except possibly in the world-views of philosophers. On the contrary, it is the lack of unity that enables us to distinguish reality from perception.
"Generating" a world view is much more appropriate than "creating" it. Think of a VR kit that can give you a picture of the world around you as it is or a fantasy world. "Creating" the fantasy world is perfectly appropriate, but not "creating" the real world. "generating" is much better.