bsit
- 29 Posts
- 99 Comments
Burden‑of‑proof reversal - >support your positive claim that consciousness is fundamental.
Begging the question / Circular reasoning - Presenting that claim as a settled fact without argument assumes the very point under dispute.
I did offer support, several times. Just because you keep skipping over it doesn’t mean I didn’t. My support is: to say anything about the world, you have to be conscious first. Feel free to refute the fact. Once you do, I’ll respond.
I’m presenting an axiom. Every “proof” you offer for matter is itself an experience appearing within consciousness. I’m not assuming the conclusion; I’m highlighting the only medium through which “evidence” is even possible.
False analogy / Irrelevant comparison
Materialism and Idealism are equally “unfalsifiable” at the foundational level. Science measures the behavior of things (phenomena), but it cannot prove the nature of the “thing-in-itself” (noumena) exists without a witness.
Tu quoque / Defensive turn
It is not a fallacy to point out that you’re guilty of the very “unfounded belief” you accuse me of. It is a valid critique of Scientism (the mistaken belief that the scientific method can solve metaphysical questions)
Equivocation
I’m not “blurring” terms; I’m defining them more precisely. For an Idealist, “to exist” is synonymous with “to be experienced”. You are assuming a secondary, unobservable definition of “existence” outside of experience.
Appeal to ignorance / Appeal to unfalsifiability
Materialism relies on indirect inference. Every “fact” about matter is an appearance within consciousness. Not only that, it’s a thing filtered through language. Idealism relies on direct evidence: the immediate, undeniable fact of experience itself (before labels, words, concepts, map-to-the-territory) There is zero evidence for matter existing independently of an observer. To claim that matter exists when no one is experiencing it is an unfalsifiable leap of faith, not a scientific “fact”.
Rhetorical trap / Straw‑man implication - Labeling the opponent’s method a “trap” without showing how their specific move misapplies logic risks mischaracterizing their argument rather than refuting it.
I did explain, but well… you don’t read. You just want to prove yourself right.
Special pleading - Claiming your position is exempt from the usual requirement to provide independent support while insisting others must disprove theirs functions like special pleading.
I’m pointing at the Hard Problem of Consciousness. It is actually “special pleading” to claim matter is the only thing that doesn’t need a witness to be “real”.
Consciousness isn’t just the starting line, it’s the entire field. Without it, there’s no game, no players, no ‘matter.’ You’re arguing about the rules of a game while standing on the field and pretending the field doesn’t exist. Matter is the “Guess”: You only assume physical things (like rocks or brains) exist “out there” because your awareness shows them to you as images, sounds, or feelings. In short: You don’t have to prove you are aware, but you do have to prove that the “outside world” exists when you aren’t looking at it
Just in case there’s someone else reading this at this point and is actually interested, go read these (because the person I’m responding to won’t and there’s little point in continuing to argue with someone like that):
https://philarchive.org/rec/KASAIA-3 Analytic Idealism: A consciousness-only ontology, Bernardo Kastrup
This is a recent philosophical look into Idealism
Some useful wikipedia links:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idealism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_problem_of_consciousness
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind–body_dualism
You accuse me of fallacies, but let’s be clear:
Burden-of-proof reversal: You demand I prove consciousness is fundamental while assuming matter is - without proving matter exists outside consciousness. That’s the very circularity I’m highlighting.
Begging the question: Claiming ‘rocks existed before brains’ assumes a materialist timeline, which is the premise in dispute. Your “evidence” is just experience within consciousness.
False analogy: You dismiss idealism as “unfalsifiable woo,” but your own materialist assumptions are equally unfalsifiable.
I’m not reversing the burden; I’m exposing the symmetry: neither of us can prove our starting point without circularity. But I can point to the fact that to say anything about the world, you need consciousness first.
I’m not begging the question; I’m asking you to justify your assumption that matter is independent of observation.
My analogy isn’t false, it’s precise: You’re demanding I disprove your framework using your framework. That’s not logic; it’s a trap.
Feel free to explain how it’s not circular to insist that a challenge to materialism must be proven within materialism.
“Rationality”
You’re the one who is resorting to just calling everything that doesn’t align with your beliefs “nonsense” and “woo-woo”. That’s about as far as rationality as you can get. You don’t have to like philosophy but then don’t start arguing about it, especially if you don’t know how to recognize logical fallacies in your own arguments.
There is no evidence for that and worse, it’s unfalsifiable, so just a personal belief.
“Please prove to me that God isn’t real by using the Bible”
I’m not arguing for solipsism, as I said in my initial post. I’m pointing out that your “shared reality” is only “shared” because consciousness makes it so. Idealism doesn’t deny the external world; it says the “external” is already a construct of mind. Your objection assumes matter is the default, but that’s the very premise in question. Science can’t falsify idealism because it relies on observation, and observation is consciousness in action. You’re using the tools of matter to dismiss what makes tools (and matter) intelligible in the first place.
It’s not solipsism, as I specifically said in my first post. It’s idealism. There’s a significant difference. I suggest you read on it before throwing around terms.
Everything you’re describing is something that appeared in consciousness and was then put to words, which are not reality, just symbols pointing to an experience inside consciousness.
You’re doing the science sounding equivalent of the Christian “god is real, says so in the bible, and bible was written by god, therefore it’s true”.
Also your education is not too good on the matter if you think I’m saying anything new. This philosophical stance has been around for centuries. I’ve already pointed to idealism.
“plenty that matter existed before consciousness”
Prove it. Prove that anything exists outside consciousness right now, that isn’t just an appearance inside consciousness.
Nope. If you want to say anything (matter, rocks) exist before consciousness, you’re going to have to prove it first. Else, you’re insisting on a materialist dogma.
Just because the idea is novel to you personally, doesn’t mean it’s outlandish.
What would you know about brains if not for consciousness?
Yeah, I haven’t looked into that one. Just read old philosophy and also a bit on analytic idealism from Bernardo Kastrup
https://philarchive.org/rec/KASAIA-3
It’s gaining a bit of mainstream recognition but… A lot of cultural baggage resists it.
The argument isn’t if rocks have individual consciousness.
The fact is that rocks exist inside consciousness.
I don’t need to defend the idea with the ideas of a system that hasn’t first proven itself.
To say anything about the world, you blatantly obviously need consciousness first. That’s the status quo. The burden of proof is on materialists.
I already gave definitions in my first post.
Scientific thought demands proof of consciousness using matter as the base assumption, yet matter itself is only ever observed through consciousness. It’s a circular trap: the method assumes what it’s supposed to prove.
Falsifiability? Prove that matter exists before consciousness.
Consciousness is the principle within which electrons exist.
No.
All of those things exist inside A consciousness.
Consciousness is fundamental to reality. Science-based thinking (but not science itself) has put matter as the fundamental element but actually has never been able to prove it. To be able to prove that matter gives rise to consciousness, you’d have to step out of consciousness and point to matter. Which you cannot do. Not talking about individual consciousness where you can just point at someone’s brain: that experience of pointing at someone’s brain is happening inside consciousness, how else would you know about it.
Not to be confused with Solipsism, that’s the thinking mind. I’m talking about Idealism, the raw state of pure experience before thought.
2·8 days agoTrue that. But I think it’s valuable that there are people trying to find ways to make it ethical, since there’s no way to put it back in the box either.
Not at all to imply that this is your case, but there’s a difference between having an intellectual understanding of idealism and actually having the lived experience of it.
And most people need to do some kind of practices to get there, which are typically found in spiritual contexts (meditation etc.). But there definitely are people who just kinda drop into it.
Though… yes. It’s a philosophical stance but it kinda gets tossed under the umbrella of spirituality. Maybe that’s actually a problem come to think of it. Since spirituality is easier to dismiss as “woo” (as in, everything that goes against the almighty scientism is woo…)
Though you do say:
What do you mean? Because as an idealist, I was specifically taught to see the difference between a subjective perception and general consciousness. It’s very possible this is just semantics of course.