Rational, evidence-based, non-materialist model of mind-brain interaction

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Originally Posted by Bernardo

Do you see it? Your trying to make definite statements about an experience you already assumed nobody (but the cat) has access to already begs Realism. It's a habit of thought. I'm not making a definite statement about whether the cat is alive or dead; I am just saying that insofar, and only insofar, as the cat experiences its 'aliveness,' then it's true that the cat is alive. But I don't have access to the cat's experience in my egoic state.

But this means that anything that is not conscious does not exist in an external, real world. So the trees in my yard are simply a stream of consciousness that I experience. How, then, is the consistency of those trees maintained from one viewing to the next?

I thought the idea was that the sense data tunes the brain filters to select my experience of the trees. But if the experience is to be consistent from viewing to viewing, the sense data must have an independent existence.

To understand Idealism, you must always come back to subjective experience. There is no reality but what is experienced.

I don't see how that can be the case.

It's hard to break your realist assumptions. Idealism DOES NOT describe an external world, in the sense of a world outside of experience. That's the whole darned point of Idealism! It denies that such an external world exists, and states instead that only experience exists. Such experience has patterns and regularities in and of itself; they are NOT generated by the modulation of experience by some world 'out there.'

Nor this.

~~ Paul

[Bernardo]

Originally Posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

But this means that anything that is not conscious does not exist in an external, real world.

Right.

Originally Posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

So the trees in my yard are simply a stream of consciousness that I experience.

You and/or whoever else observes the trees.

Originally Posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

How, then, is the consistency of those trees maintained from one viewing to the next?

That's the 'data-stream' from the unconscious, which embodies the regularities responsible for continuity, the so-called 'laws of nature,' etc. Postulating this data-stream is the Idealist equivalent of postulating the Big Bang, objective and eternal laws of nature, and universal history. In the 'hyper-membrane' metaphor I posted earlier, this 'data-stream' is simply the oscillations of the non-folded parts of the hyper-membrane, which propagate into multiple individual folds ('egos') with distortions (related to where in the hyper-membrane each fold is, and how exactly it is folded) that account for the uniqueness of each ego's perspective within space-time.

Originally Posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

I thought the idea was that the sense data tunes the brain filters to select my experience of the trees. But if the experience is to be consistent from viewing to viewing, the sense data must have an independent existence.

The tagging thingy (sense data tuning filters, etc.) was the Dualist articulation (which I don't adopt). In the discussion with Maaneli we are exploring the Idealist articulation. Under Idealism, the 'filtering' becomes the 'folding' of the hyper-membrane.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Originally Posted by Bernardo

That's the 'data-stream' from the unconscious, which embodies the regularities responsible for continuity, the so-called 'laws of nature,' etc.

Then the data stream is the real world.

Postulating this data-stream is the Idealist equivalent of postulating the Big Bang, objective and eternal laws of nature, and universal history.

That is, the real world.

The question is: Once an idealist model of the world is built, will it somehow be simpler than the physicalist model? Philosophers tend to elide the details.

~~ Paul

[Bernardo]

Since the discussion here has 'lost contact' with the original subject of this thread, I decided to start a fresh new one:

http://forum.mind-energy.net/skeptik...-membrane.html

[XXII]

I have to say that I very much agree with Bernardo on this. Despite the fact that we would likely word it in different ways I believe that at heart his thesis is in line with what I understand reality to be.

We are very much unable to bridge this conceptual gap we have created for ourselves between "Objectivity" and "Subjectivity", gap on which a great deal of modern science has built and elaborated upon.

The way I see it everything we experience is but patterns within Mind. Some of these patterns are quite stable, like the laws of Nature described by Physical science, others are relatively stable, individuals and egoic minds (our normal state of consciousness), whilst others rather unstable, altered states like dreams, drug experiences, meditation, UFO encounters and abductions, etc.

It seems that the landspace of Mind bears within it all potentialities which are actualized by the incessant interplay between patterns. As these particular modes of manifestation are expressed over and over again they become more stable and refined. The different grades of sensations and reflection contribute to the progressive structuring and linking of different areas within Mind. As these archetypes become more and more structured they 'seek out' their own actualization. In this sense the evolution of species and the manifestation of folk archetypes in the form of faeries, UFOs, etc, both take part in the actualization of archetypes latent in the landscape of Mind, albeit archetypes of a different kind.

[Interesting Ian]

Maaneli and Bernardo,

Here's a video which will help both of you understand some of the issues regarding QM.

[mszlazak]

Originally Posted by Maaneli

Thanks, looking forward.

Here is the response from Henry Stapp about your previous post that first mentions him which I copied a forwarded.

The comment on your explanation of 'contextuality' is correct: it is not restricted to theories in which 'measurements' occur only in conjunction
with 'perception'. "Measurements", in the above, means the emergence, or
coming into being, of definte outcomes of measurement procedures.

In a quantum context a measurement outcome means essentually
the reduction of the physically described quantum state of a system
being measured from the one generated by the Schroedinger equation,
which generates a smear of many classically describable possibilities,
to a reduced state that describes essentially one classically describable,
and hence perceivable, possibility.

This reduction might occur in close association with an external-to-any-
brain' "measuring device" that is not intrinsically tied to a perception;
or it might occur in close association with a brain that IS intrinsically
tied to a perception (which is something described in psychological rather
than physical terms).

Von Neumann pushes the the boundary between the physically described and
psychologically described aspects of the theoretical description up so
that all physically described aspects are described quantum mechanically,
thereby pushing the psychologically described aspects out of the quantum
mechanically described world into something called the "abtract ego".

That does not immediately and directly imply that the "reduction of the
quantum state" cannot occur at an external (measuring) device. It means
only that something (e.g., an abstract ego) beyond the standard quantum
laws of motion is entering into the dynamical evolution of the quantum
state of the system being.

Although this abstract ego must encompass psychologically described
things, which we know exist, it is not clear that it contains ONLY
psychologically described things: it might contain also some elements that
are intrinsically classically describable, but are not perceptions

Bohr reveals his predilection to regard the mental as the source
of classicality when he likens the classicality introduced by the
action of an external device to the extention of the "self" of a blind
man from his hand to tip of his cane that accompanies a tightning of his
grip.

These considerations indicated that the central "measurement" problem of
quantum mechanics, namely the problem of "what is the cause or origin of
the reduction of the quantum smear of classically describable potentialities
to an actually perceived fixed actuality?", is not yet a fixed and settled
matter: it is not clear whether classical perception is actually necessary
for the injection of classical definiteness, even though the only evidence
for such a reduction lies in perceptions. Even though the most economical
possibility is that the reduction is directly associated with a perception,
that is not the only possibility.

This more detailed discussion is what you evidently want to avoid.
But the bottom line is that the emergence of the empirically perceived
"classically descibable definitenes" from the prior quantum smear may or
may not be intrinsically tied to perceptions, even though the only empirical
evidence for such reductions arises in association with perceptions. Hence
the thrust of QM to bring in ideas only as they are needed to accomodate
empirical data tends to favor the option of associating reduction with
perception.

But QM is contextual in either case: the proven fact that the validity of
certain empirically verified predictions of QM about perceivable macroscopic
outcomes entails that information about which experiment is locally
chosen in one of two essential simultaneous regions must be operative
in the other region entails that QM is contextual, even if the
definiteness of outcomes does not require that the outcomes be
actually perceived. [I do not believe that Bell-type hidden-variable
argument are adequate to prove the nonlocality property, and hence
contextuality, but believe that I have constructed adequate proofs
that do not depend upon objectionable question-begging "reality"
assumptions.]

In short, QM can be proved contextual on the basis of actually verified
prediction pertaining to observations on macroscopic systems
even if the reductions occur without perceptions.

I am pursuing the option that ties reduction to perception, or to
the mental aspects of reality. This option is compatible with my
understanding of Whitehead.

I hope these words clarify my understanding of, and position on,
these fundamental issues.

Henry

[Maaneli]

Originally Posted by Bernardo

Science and philosophy are done by egos, who 'live' in space-time. So from the point of view science and philosophy, it is not only legitimate but unavoidable to work within the notions of space-time. Thus, to speak of dynamic processes is OK, to the extent that it simply recognizes the constraints of our perception. This does not imply, however, a contradiction, since I adopt an anti-realist stance: My models are supposed to be such that the universe behaves as if the models were true, but they are not meant to be literally true. In other words, if space-time were true, the best approximation in language for what is going on might be to say that experience is a dynamic oscillation.

I'm sorry, but this doesn't make logical sense. It doesn't mean anything to say that the true fact of the matter is that spacetime doesn't exist at the fundamental level of your model, but we can still accurately describe that fundamental level with a model that assumes that spacetime does exist and does make sense. Especially when you can't describe what's *actually* happening at that fundamental level if it's not really a spacetime process.

Originally Posted by Bernardo

In the metaphor I described in this post, experience is described as the oscillations of the hyper-membrane. Within the metaphor, the membrane is fundamentally static (it exists even if it's not vibrating), but experience is dynamic (it is the vibrations). Both notions require the concepts of space-time because it's impossible to say anything that transcends space-time.

Same objection applies. Also, you have to be able to describe your model without mere metaphors that use concepts which are logically inconsistent with what you purport your model to actually assume. If you can't, then it's not logically coherent. And you can't get out of that by just saying that I'm stuck in my realist assumptions. Logic applies to idealism as much as realism.

Originally Posted by Bernardo

Yes, but only insofar as the cat, assumed to be a conscious entity, experiences his 'aliveness.' It is his experience of being alive that makes it real.



Materialist perspective of the cat being alive: The scientist states that there exists this object called a cat, which, regardless of whether it truly has consciousness or not, exists and breathes independently of the scientist's experience of it, or of anyone's experience.

I deny that. There is no object called a 'cat' independent of experience. There is only a cat alive in the box insofar as the cat experiences its 'aliveness' (or that someone else experiences the cat being there alive, which was discarded by hypothesis). It is solely the cat's experience that confers reality to what is going on, though that experience is completely inaccessible to the scientist, given the latter's egoic condition.

Do you see it? Your trying to make definite statements about an experience you already assumed nobody (but the cat) has access to already begs Realism. It's a habit of thought. I'm not making a definite statement about whether the cat is alive or dead; I am just saying that insofar, and only insofar, as the cat experiences its 'aliveness,' then it's true that the cat is alive. But I don't have access to the cat's experience in my egoic state.

But you've already made a realist assumption by claiming that within the universal mind is a set of folded minds, each having experiences, and that those experiences are real (i..e they constitute the ontology). So there should be a more 'global' fact of the matter about whether the cat is in a folded mind state that corresponds to it being in a definite state or not.

Originally Posted by Bernardo

We cannot make truth statements about things or processes outside our collective field of human experience, since it is experience that confers truth to those statements, under Idealism.

But you're claiming to make truth statements about things or processes outside YOUR "collective field of human experience" (i.e. that there's a universal mind, a collective unconscious, a data stream, 'oscillating' hyper-membranes living outside spacetime, etc.), so again you seem to be inconsistent.

Originally Posted by Bernardo

To understand Idealism, you must always come back to subjective experience. There is no reality but what is experienced. If in doubt about what Idealism would say for this or that experiment, just ask yourself: Can this be said to be experienced by a conscious entity? If not, it's epistemic. If it can, then it is ontological, even though you may not know the answer to the extent that you don't have access to the experience.

Your universal mind has experiences, and those experiences include all these folded minds having experiences within the universal mind. So there is a more global, objective fact of the matter about what the individual minds are experiencing.

Originally Posted by Bernardo

Exactly. This premise is the presupposition of Realism.

Yes, and it has yet to be shown unreasonable, to the best of my knowledge.

Originally Posted by Bernardo

It partly governs the flow of experience of all folded human minds, yes (not the hyper-geometry of their folding). I say 'partly' in the sense that it only governs a subset of those experiences: the parts that overlap across folded minds. For instance, we all share the experience that 'objects' are attracted to the ground. That's governed by the regularities known as the 'laws of nature' as uncovered by the scientific method. What science thus acknowledges as valid regularities are by construction the shared ones, which will correspond to the 'data-stream' from the 'unconscious.'

But folded minds also have idiosyncratic experiences: dreams, visions, trances, and apparent 'breaks' in the continuity of reality that happen during sharp, waking states (missing time, absurd phenomena, and the like). Those, because of being idiosyncratic, are discarded by the scientific method (as they should be, to preserve the power of the method; which thus becomes incomplete).

Okay, so when two humans have the experiences of staring at each other, QM applies to that situation. So then the QM description applies to the perceived people as well (contrary to what you said earlier).

Originally Posted by Bernardo

Not sure I understand. 'How they apply' in what sense?
ADDED LATER: Oh, I think I got it. OK, you seem to interpret the laws of QM as something that 'wields power' of nature; something 'governing' nature. So your interpretation of the statement that QM applies to the data-stream is that it somehow wields power over it, so you want to know how that power is wielded, right? Well, what I meant here is something completely different. To me, QM doesn't 'wield power' over anything; the rules of QM don't 'control' nature, they just reflect it. They are simply realizations of certain patterns already present in nature. The 'laws' don't 'rule' anything, it's the other way around: Patterns and regularities already present in the data-stream are recognized by us, and the modeling of this recognition is what we call 'laws.' This is the sense in which I said that QM applies to the data-stream. It embodies our recognition of the regularities of the data-stream.

OK, then my previous comment above applies here as well.

Originally Posted by Bernardo

OK. Forget for a moment what I said about space-time not being fundamental. Assume, for the sake of argument, that space-time are somehow an irreducible canvas framing every phenomenon in the known and unknown parts of the universe. This assumption allows us to construct intelligible models and arguments under an anti-realist guise (things can be said to work 'as if' the models were true). Now consider what I told you in this post from yesterday. That entire description uses space-time metaphors (membranes,topological foldings, oscillations, the lot). Would that then make sense to you?

If you make that assumption, then you undercut your entire model because by having spacetime be an irreducible canvas on which your collective unconscious, universal mind, etc., reside, you now have explicitly introduced a non-idealist ontology (spacetime), along with all the metrical properties of that spacetime (i.e. relativistic causality, the Einstein equation, etc.). So you've introduced objective, non-idealist laws of physics as well.

Originally Posted by Bernardo

My motivation for not granting space-time any fundamental status is that I do not see any fundamental difference between it and the other contents of my egoic experience (matter, energy, and their arrangements). In fact, I see them as co-dependent. But it's fine that we ignore this for the sake of discussion.

But we can't ignore it. If you can't consistently incorporate spacetime with your idealist ontology, then your entire model fails!

Originally Posted by Bernardo

The scientific method eliminates everything that is not consistently replicated through multiple independent observations.

OK, though I still don't see how that comment was relevant to what I asked/said.

Originally Posted by Bernardo

Under Idealism, all reality is only what is experienced, so all 'objects' are fundamentally one with the 'subject;' there is nothing outside the subject, so there is in fact no 'subject' in the sense we use the word, for the concept of a subject is co-dependent with that of an object (they are defined in terms of one another). This is consistent with the entire quote, if you read it again. Let's do it: "any observation of atomic phenomena will involve an interaction with the agency of observation." Surely, they are a single system, so they 'interact' by definition. And: "an independent reality in the ordinary physical sense can neither be ascribed to the phenomena nor to the agencies of observation." Surely. Idealism merges subject and object in a single system (see this post again), so an ontology cannot be attributed to either independently of the other.

I thought that the data stream, which flows from the collective unconscious and has regularities that correspond to the QM description, does exist independently of the folded minds.

Originally Posted by Bernardo

Non-locality is modeled in configuration space. The non-locality I am referring to is not an epistemic construct, but what Alan Aspect and many others have actually observed in a laboratory from 1981 onwards.

But that nonlocality was observed to happen IN spacetime, with a description that occurs IN configuration space (both of which you claim don't exist for the collective unconscious).

Originally Posted by Bernardo

I never assumed that, though I don't know how the words came across to you. Either way, for the sake of clarity, NO, I don't make that assumption; I am NOT a solipsist.

Your words certainly seemed to imply that, though maybe you misspoke.

Originally Posted by Bernardo

As I clarified above, your characterization of my belief here is incorrect. My experience is merely all that I can know directly about reality. It is reasonable to infer, though, from the consistencies across the experience reports of others, that certain things that fall outside the field of my own direct experiences are also true (as truthful experiences of several others).

If you think it's reasonable to infer that 'certain things that fall outside the field of your own direct experiences are also true (as truthful experiences of several others)', then you're explicitly making a realist assumption. You're claiming an objective fact of the matter about what other folded minds are experiencing. So again, contradiction with your purported idealism!

Originally Posted by Bernardo

I'm not forcing you to spend significant time articulating long replies, and asking dozens of detailed questions every day about the subject. Though I can't pretend to know what's going on in your mind, you do come across as very interested and intrigued by the whole idea, which contradicts your appraisal of it as nonsensical. But then again, I may be wrong...

I'm not a priori against idealism. I'm always willing to hear out a well-thought out proposal for it. If I'm being honest, initially I thought your proposal might be one, but as the discussion has progressed, I've become less and less convinced of that and I'm continuing more out of politeness (though I did also say we need to stop very soon).

Originally Posted by Bernardo

I was just illustrating the impossibility to talk, with language, about something outside of time without the appearance of contradiction. To make that point, it's totally irrelevant whether Barbour's ideas are coherent or not.

Alright.

Originally Posted by Bernardo

-----

Most of your problems with my hypothesis seem to arise from my suggestion that space-time is not a fundamental canvas, but just part of experience. Most of my argument, however, does not depend on that being true.As I said above, if you are still honestly open to entertaining what I am trying to get across, try to re-evaluate the whole thing again based on this post, and under the assumption that there is a 'hyper-space-time' framing the hyper-membrane I am talking about.

As I implied above, I read this post and found that it shares all the same problems with begging the question about spacetime. Also, I agree with many of the critiques of Paul, anonymous, and mzlazlak.

EDIT: Bernardo, I need to wrap this up. One last exchange.

[Maaneli]

Originally Posted by FallingLeaf

Maaneli, are quantum fluctuations in a vacuum not meant to be outside of spacetime as they are the origins of spacetime?

Excellent conversation, chaps, one of the best Skeptiko threads in ages. In fact, one of the best debates I've seen on the web - better than certain other website that pride themselves on their scientific knowledge (or pretensions).

No, quantum fluctuations happen IN spacetime! They are not the origins of it.

Thanks for the compliments. What's your impression so far (in terms of the issues)?

[Bernardo]

Originally Posted by Maaneli

I'm sorry, but this doesn't make logical sense.

To you it clearly doesn't, but it is just vanilla Dummettian anti-realism. But then again, Idealism is also illogical to you. This is not sarcasm: logic can be subjective. There are many different versions of logic in philosophy, with different axioms, proving this statement. My favorite logic (Intuitionism) would probably drive you nutts. Yet it is academically recognized.

Originally Posted by Maaneli

It doesn't mean anything to say that the true fact of the matter is that spacetime doesn't exist at the fundamental level of your model, but we can still accurately describe that fundamental level with a model that assumes that spacetime does exist and does make sense.

We can sufficiently approximate the true facts of the matter in a description, given our cognitive circumstances. That approximation is always metaphorical, given that the true facts of the matter are more likely to escape our cognitive abilities than not. After all, there is no reason to believe that our cognitive apparatus would have evolved to completely understand itself (recursion, which is at the root of Idealism).

Human understanding requires analogies, comparisons, and metaphors with objects and phenomena that are understood, i.e. phenomena in space-time. The human cognitive apparatus has evolved under those circumstances, after all. Therefore, it is entirely valid, and even necessary, to use metaphors within that context, even if the facts of the matter are suspected to completely transcend them.

Originally Posted by Maaneli

Same objection applies. Also, you have to be able to describe your model without mere metaphors

To the extent that language descriptions of anything beyond empirical observation are always a metaphor, this sounds challenging... You see, language is symbol; symbol is metaphor.

Mathematics is also a metaphor when applied as a description. The numbers and symbols are not the thing they are supposed to represent; they just represent them.

I sense that you, like the vast majority of people today, sometimes mix up symbols (concepts, metaphors) with the thing they represent. I posted about it a couple of days ago here. So when you get someone like me who is explicit in stating all his descriptions are 'as if' descriptions (anti-realist metaphors), that makes you jerk.

All we can intellectually articulate are concepts, symbols, which represent more or less accurately the facts of the matter, given our cognitive limitations. All facts of the matter that escape the limits of human direct experience can only be approximated through these metaphors.

Originally Posted by Maaneli

But you've already made a realist assumption by claiming that within the universal mind is a set of folded minds, each having experiences, and that those experiences are real (i..e they constitute the ontology).

That's intended as a more-or-less accurate metaphor. And it's not realist at all, in the sense that I am talking about MINDS, not anything OUTSIDE OF MIND. There are no 'folds out there;' they are the topology of mind.

Originally Posted by Maaneli

But you're claiming to make truth statements about things or processes outside YOUR "collective field of human experience" (i.e. that there's a universal mind, a collective unconscious, a data stream, 'oscillating' hyper-membranes living outside spacetime, etc.), so again you seem to be inconsistent.

This is an illogical statement. "MY collective field of human experience"? It is either mine or it is collective. I meant the collective.

Originally Posted by Maaneli

Your universal mind has experiences, and those experiences include all these folded minds having experiences within the universal mind. So there is a more global, objective fact of the matter about what the individual minds are experiencing.

Sure. I am not a solipsist. I am an Idealist: There is nothing outside mind, even though what I experience as MY mind is just a topological subset of a broader mental field. So there are realities my egoic self does not have access to; but they are all experiences in mind; the very same mind I am a part of.

Originally Posted by Maaneli

Okay, so when two humans have the experiences of staring at each other, QM applies to that situation. So then the QM description applies to the perceived people as well (contrary to what you said earlier).

I don't understand what you mean here. What exactly is the contradiction you are seeing?

Originally Posted by Maaneli

If you make that assumption, then you undercut your entire model because by having spacetime be an irreducible canvas on which your collective unconscious, universal mind, etc., reside, you now have explicitly introduced a non-idealist ontology (spacetime), along with all the metrical properties of that spacetime (i.e. relativistic causality, the Einstein equation, etc.). So you've introduced objective, non-idealist laws of physics as well.

Oh gosh.... IT IS A METAPHOR!

I was originally consistent when I stated that there is no objective canvas of space-time. Then you started firing left-and-right on everything I said because any description in language assumes space-time by construction, so you thought everything I said was incoherent. I thought it was a pity that you couldn't give yourself permission to look at my argument because you couldn't go past this perceived incoherence, so I suggested you assume, JUST FOR THE SAKE OF ARGUMENT, that space-time did exist objectively. But now you come back and say "Ahh! You're inconsistent! An Idealist should not grant objective space-time!"

YES! That's where I started from.

Originally Posted by Maaneli

But we can't ignore it. If you can't consistently incorporate spacetime with your idealist ontology, then your entire model fails!

You see, you believe all final truths about nature, mind, and the human condition can be captured precisely, completely, and literary in a mathematical model that fits within human brains.

I don't make that assumption because I see absolutely ZERO reasons why our cognitive apparatus should have evolved to be able to do that. Here is a little video you may like: Consciousness and the limits of Science - Boundaries of the Knowable (1/10) - YouTube.

So I am just being consistent with my position that the best we can do is to approximate the facts of the matter with more-or-less accurate metaphors; even highly complex mathematical metaphors, whose usefulness I will never deny. Because I am open and explicit about this, and because it falls short of what you believe is possible, everything I say comes across to you as dis-satisfactory.

Originally Posted by Maaneli

I thought that the data stream, which flows from the collective unconscious and has regularities that correspond to the QM description, does exist independently of the folded minds.

Did you see the new thread I started? I link to a better description of what I meant here, which may help. But to answer: Yes, you are right in a way. The collective unconscious, being oscillations taking place in unfolded regions of mind, does 'happen' outside of the folds.

Originally Posted by Maaneli

But that nonlocality was observed to happen IN spacetime, with a description that occurs IN configuration space (both of which you claim don't exist for the collective unconscious).

Oh, I accept space-time as a fact of experience! My only point is: space-time is not a fundamental, objective canvas outside of mind, and wherein mind 'lives.' It's just part-and-parcel of subjective experience, like material objects and energy flows. But as experience, SPACE-TIME IS REAL. Since my entire ontology is an ontology of experience, I grant space-time the same reality I grant the computer I am typing on right now. Similarly, I granted the OBSERVED non-locality that same ontological substance too: the substance of experience.

Originally Posted by Maaneli

If you think it's reasonable to infer that 'certain things that fall outside the field of your own direct experiences are also true (as truthful experiences of several others)', then you're explicitly making a realist assumption. You're claiming an objective fact of the matter about what other folded minds are experiencing. So again, contradiction with your purported idealism!

Not at all. Idealism here means one very specific thing, so let's spell it out through a comparison, to be precise:

REALISM: The world each one of us experiences is a brain-constructed 'hallucination' modulated by signals coming from an abstract world outside of minds. The objects you actually see are all inside your head; the real objects are in an inaccessible abstract space. Your real skull is beyond the stars you see when you look up the sky, because the stars are also brain-reconstructions inside your head (there is actually a materialist paper saying exactly this). If there were no minds, that abstract objective world would still exist, outside of mental experience. Mind is inside a structure of that abstract, objective world that we call a brain. (this definition of materialism is not polemic)

BERNARDO'S IDEALISM: There is no world outside of mind modulating a brain-constructed hallucination. Subjective experience itself is all there is. The objects you see are the actual objects, insofar as 'actual' means that they are felt experiences. Your body is inside your mind, not your mind in your body.

Now let's come back to the point: By acknowledging that other egos have experiences that do not overlap with the experiences of my ego I am, in no way whatsoever, departing from the position that there is no objective world outside of mind; or that bodies are inside the mind. I am simply acknowledging that my ego does not have access to the entire field of mind.

Originally Posted by Maaneli

I'm continuing more out of politeness

Oh, please don't then, because I am also entertaining you out of respect and goodwill. I am disappointed by what I perceive as an impossibility to help you break out from very naive-realist assumptions about nature and the role of science, and the fact that you seem to have more difficulty with simple philosophical arguments than I initially thought. It costs me time to write these answers to you; time I don't really have. Philosophy is a hobby for me, for I hold a full-time job as a company executive. Had I read this comment of yours before I started replying, I wouldn't have.

Let's wrap it up here.