Idealism Misses The Point

[Objects Are Real]

The two most obvious aspects of reality are 1) your consciousness; 2) material objects external to you.

What distinguishes material objects from mind is the fact that material objects have BOTH a spatial and temporal existence, whereas mind LACKS a spatial location (there is no thought in centimeters or grams). Thoughts ARE indeed temporal, however (reasoning happens as a process in time). This means that material objects have two bounds, a spatial AND a temporal bound. Thoughts (consciousness) has ONLY one bound, i.e., it is bound by time alone.

Because consciousness is limited by time, it fails as a fundamental theory. That is to say, the foundation of all being cannot have a bound; Idealism does.

We need more. Whereas material has a spatial and temporal bound, and consciousness only a temporal bound, something that has NEITHER a spatial or temporal bound is required.

Consider the point as understood in geometry. In geometry, a point has no dimensions, and yet from it comes all geometric dimensions. From the point extends a line, which is one dimensional. At the end of a line comes a sweep which causes a circle, a circumference. The line together with its circumference defines two bounds, each emerging form a point which has no bound. The line, which is one dimension, can be likened to time. The line can extend forever, though it will always be bound to one dimension. The circumference is analogous to space, as it is that which restricts, demarcates a location. Whereas the line offers a plenitude for which events can happen, the circumference constricts "where" an object can be. Given this, the line (time) which is free from the parameters of a circumference (space), therefore is situated ontologically HIGHER than the spatial. In a phrase: Time is more fundamental than space.

With this, we find ourselves staring at two strata in a hierarchical ontology, i.e., the temporal and the spatial. The two most obvious aspects of reality being 1) your consciousness and 2) material objects external to you; we can say the same for time and space, given their analogical relationship to consciousness (in time, but free from space) and material objects (in space and in time).

But the line of geometry nor circumference could possibly cause themselves. They are inseparable from the geometric point from which they sprang. To account for their existence, the line and circumference require something transcendent of themselves. Because the line is analogous to consciousness, and circumference to material, we can safely say that consciousness nor materiality could possibly cause themselves.

And this is where idealism falls short. Idealism, like the line of geometry, cannot account for its beginning. Because, under idealism, consciousness is the ultimate foundation of reality, it fails by virtue of the fact that consciousness is a process, and all processes happen in time, and are bound time. The true foundation of reality is that which causes the process, and anything that causes a process can't already be that process, a metaphysical impossibility.

To restore a more authentic philosophy we must understanding that there is a fixed point of reality that causes time and space, thus can account for them both. It is this that caused the analogues of those cosmic bounds: consciousness and materiality. That point is bound NEITHER by time or space. This point is what allows for the most important aspects of reality: the now; facts; the truth; being; intelligibility, knowing. Idealism's "consciousness" being a process is analogous to reasoning without knowing. Reasoning in absence of truth will lead one to schizophrenic madness, or more appropriately, the madness of dissociative identity disorder. Without a cause of consciousness and materiality, we are unmoored, floating adrift in a see of meaninglessness, nothing to ground a fact of the matter. Idealism, while better than materialism, offers such much meaninglessness given that it would have us to believe that processes in time (consciousness) have no beginning.

The timeless point, together with the dimension of time and the parameters of space, define a hierarchical tripartite ontology. This is of course not original to me, as it is both Platonic schools and Vedic, restored most recently by the invaluable Dr. Wolfgang Smith.

Lowest within this ontology is the material world, i.e., objects which indeed exist yet do not themselves perceive (molecules, chairs, galaxies). These objects are constricted by both space and time, and yet by virtue of the fact that they own QUALITIES, means that they are "corporeal," they can be perceived, and thus part of the real world. Because corporeal objects have qualities, they cannot reduce to physics, though physics can describe a quantitative aspect of them. Corporeal objects are bound by both space and a time.

In this tripartite cosmos, a level above the corporeal is the mental which is mind or soul. I believe that idealism has misdefined consciousness,and so here I will call the consciousness of idealism "iconsciouness." This is because an authentic understanding of consciousness knows consciousness as a nomen dei (name of God) and not a kind of non-self-aware, untethered process bound by nature. (Consiousness as nomen dei is a topic for another time). And so, the second level in the tripartite cosmos, the mental is the consciousness of idealism. The mental is bound by time but not space. The mental or iconsciouness, is likened to time, which is above space, which is why idealism is philosophically "above" materialism.

Materialism is restricted to the spatial and Idealism is relegated to time. Idealism incorrectly places iconsciouness as the highest, "the ground of all being," when in fact iconsciouness is situated only in middle, i.e., it is above space, yet because iconsciousness is bound by time, it is beneath that which is timeless.

I am not saying that the timeless point of the cosmos is God, for even the point of geometry must be put there by a geometer. The cosmic point, which is spaceless and timeless, therefore was itself "put there" by the cosmic geometer, God.

[Federica]

Hello OAR,

Thank you for bringing your thoughts to the forum, and welcome! I am not familiar with the philosophy of Wolfgang Smith. The notes I have added below are just my spontaneous, preliminary replies to your approach to understanding reality.

The two most obvious aspects of reality are 1) your consciousness; 2) material objects external to you.

What distinguishes material objects from mind is the fact that material objects have BOTH a spatial and temporal existence, whereas mind LACKS a spatial location (there is no thought in centimeters or grams). Thoughts ARE indeed temporal, however (reasoning happens as a process in time). This means that material objects have two bounds, a spatial AND a temporal bound. Thoughts (consciousness) has ONLY one bound, i.e., it is bound by time alone.

Noticeable in your train of thought:
- Mind, thoughts, consciousness and the activity that produces them are all the same indistinguishable thing.
- What appears to our experience as obvious at first is admitted without scrutiny as the true ground of reality.


Because consciousness is limited by time, it fails as a fundamental theory. That is to say, the foundation of all being cannot have a bound; Idealism does.

The process through which our thoughts become known to us - as thought-images or thought-perceptions - is indeed time-bound, and cannot constitute the foundation of reality. Idealism, however, does not suggest that.
Moreover, the “what-if” approach of throwing out theories of reality, in order to then evaluate how reasonable they seem to be, in comparison with other theories, with respect to how many supposedly desirable properties they satisfy, etc. - is a very common, but flawed approach to understanding the nature of reality.

We need more. Whereas material has a spatial and temporal bound, and consciousness only a temporal bound, something that has NEITHER a spatial or temporal bound is required.

Although there is sense in the aspiration of inquiring about the nature of reality beyond spacetime, this whole statement is problematic, because it is built on the wrong foundation that consciousness is equal to thoughts, thus it is time-bound, and that the material world is an obviously separate “aspect of reality”.

Consider the point as understood in geometry. In geometry, a point has no dimensions, and yet from it comes all geometric dimensions. From the point extends a line, which is one dimensional. At the end of a line comes a sweep which causes a circle, a circumference. The line together with its circumference defines two bounds, each emerging form a point which has no bound. The line, which is one dimension, can be likened to time. The line can extend forever, though it will always be bound to one dimension. The circumference is analogous to space, as it is that which restricts, demarcates a location. Whereas the line offers a plenitude for which events can happen, the circumference constricts "where" an object can be. Given this, the line (time) which is free from the parameters of a circumference (space), therefore is situated ontologically HIGHER than the spatial. In a phrase: Time is more fundamental than space.

With this, we find ourselves staring at two strata in a hierarchical ontology, i.e., the temporal and the spatial. The two most obvious aspects of reality being 1) your consciousness and 2) material objects external to you; we can say the same for time and space, given their analogical relationship to consciousness (in time, but free from space) and material objects (in space and in time).

But the line of geometry nor circumference could possibly cause themselves. They are inseparable from the geometric point from which they sprang. To account for their existence, the line and circumference require something transcendent of themselves. Because the line is analogous to consciousness, and circumference to material, we can safely say that consciousness nor materiality could possibly cause themselves.

This is a nice geometrical analogy that has meaning in itself, but fails to reach the conclusions it is tasked with, because it rests on flawed premises, as said.

And this is where idealism falls short. Idealism, like the line of geometry, cannot account for its beginning. Because, under idealism, consciousness is the ultimate foundation of reality, it fails by virtue of the fact that consciousness is a process, and all processes happen in time, and are bound time. The true foundation of reality is that which causes the process, and anything that causes a process can't already be that process, a metaphysical impossibility.

Again, here there is confusion about what consciousness is, what thought perception is, thinking activity, etc.


To restore a more authentic philosophy we must understanding that there is a fixed point of reality that causes time and space, thus can account for them both. It is this that caused the analogues of those cosmic bounds: consciousness and materiality. That point is bound NEITHER by time or space. This point is what allows for the most important aspects of reality: the now; facts; the truth; being; intelligibility, knowing. Idealism's "consciousness" being a process is analogous to reasoning without knowing. Reasoning in absence of truth will lead one to schizophrenic madness, or more appropriately, the madness of dissociative identity disorder. Without a cause of consciousness and materiality, we are unmoored, floating adrift in a see of meaninglessness, nothing to ground a fact of the matter. Idealism, while better than materialism, offers such much meaninglessness given that it would have us to believe that processes in time (consciousness) have no beginning.

Searching for a stable cause (of space and time boundaries) in the described context is understandable, in the same way in which trying to find orientation and solid ground in something is, in general, an understandable need. However, it fails to recognize that the concept itself of searching for a cause, is time-bound. It is problematic to say that one wants to find a fixed point that causes time and space, without noticing that the desired causality is in itself a concept that lives within the boundaries of at least time (and maybe also space).


The timeless point, together with the dimension of time and the parameters of space, define a hierarchical tripartite ontology. This is of course not original to me, as it is both Platonic schools and Vedic, restored most recently by the invaluable Dr. Wolfgang Smith.

Lowest within this ontology is the material world, i.e., objects which indeed exist yet do not themselves perceive (molecules, chairs, galaxies). These objects are constricted by both space and time, and yet by virtue of the fact that they own QUALITIES, means that they are "corporeal," they can be perceived, and thus part of the real world. Because corporeal objects have qualities, they cannot reduce to physics, though physics can describe a quantitative aspect of them. Corporeal objects are bound by both space and a time.

In this tripartite cosmos, a level above the corporeal is the mental which is mind or soul. I believe that idealism has misdefined consciousness,and so here I will call the consciousness of idealism "iconsciouness." This is because an authentic understanding of consciousness knows consciousness as a nomen dei (name of God) and not a kind of non-self-aware, untethered process bound by nature. (Consiousness as nomen dei is a topic for another time). And so, the second level in the tripartite cosmos, the mental is the consciousness of idealism. The mental is bound by time but not space. The mental or iconsciouness, is likened to time, which is above space, which is why idealism is philosophically "above" materialism.

Materialism is restricted to the spatial and Idealism is relegated to time. Idealism incorrectly places iconsciouness as the highest, "the ground of all being," when in fact iconsciouness is situated only in middle, i.e., it is above space, yet because iconsciousness is bound by time, it is beneath that which is timeless.

This model has to begin with, the problem to be a model, an hypothesis built on unscrutinized premises about the most obvious aspect of reality. It would be better to start from experience, yes, but to proceed much more carefully at the beginning so as to not drag forward some inaccurate conclusions all along.

I am not saying that the timeless point of the cosmos is God, for even the point of geometry must be put there by a geometer. The cosmic point, which is spaceless and timeless, therefore was itself "put there" by the cosmic geometer, God.

[ScottRoberts]

The two most obvious aspects of reality are 1) your consciousness; 2) material objects external to you.

What distinguishes material objects from mind is the fact that material objects have BOTH a spatial and temporal existence, whereas mind LACKS a spatial location (there is no thought in centimeters or grams). Thoughts ARE indeed temporal, however (reasoning happens as a process in time). This means that material objects have two bounds, a spatial AND a temporal bound. Thoughts (consciousness) has ONLY one bound, i.e., it is bound by time alone.

No idealist that I know of restricts consciousness or mind to thought. It also includes sense perceptions, which are spatial, and since sense perceptions are within mind, the mind is spatial as well as temporal.

I believe that idealism has misdefined consciousness,and so here I will call the consciousness of idealism "iconsciouness." This is because an authentic understanding of consciousness knows consciousness as a nomen dei (name of God) and not a kind of non-self-aware, untethered process bound by nature. (Consiousness as nomen dei is a topic for another time). And so, the second level in the tripartite cosmos, the mental is the consciousness of idealism. The mental is bound by time but not space. The mental or iconsciouness, is likened to time, which is above space, which is why idealism is philosophically "above" materialism.

Materialism is restricted to the spatial and Idealism is relegated to time. Idealism incorrectly places iconsciouness as the highest, "the ground of all being," when in fact iconsciouness is situated only in middle, i.e., it is above space, yet because iconsciousness is bound by time, it is beneath that which is timeless.

I am not saying that the timeless point of the cosmos is God, for even the point of geometry must be put there by a geometer. The cosmic point, which is spaceless and timeless, therefore was itself "put there" by the cosmic geometer, God.

I am curious as to how you think idealists have defined consciousness. What I, an idealist, mean by consciousness is, ultimately, the Mind of God, while my consciousness is just an idea in God's Mind.

[Objects Are Real]

Hi Federica, and thank you for the response.

It is the consciousness of idealism that demotes the real thing to thinking and mind. This is why I term the naturalistic "consciousness" of idealism as "iconsciousness" as compared to actual consciousness, which constitutes in fact a nomen Dei, (names of God). Idealists, while more reasonable than materialists, are stuck in the domain of reasoning alone, and without recognition of that aeviternal point, cannot not "see" consciousness as nomen Dei. Is reasoning anything in absence of truth? Without it, reasoning surely would be futile. Because truth exists, reasoning blissfully, one could say instantaneously, transforms to knowing, something that reasoning cannot accomplish on its own grounds. Idealism is reasoning which is why Bernardo ascribes to it a naturalistic and subjective process. iconsciouness then is unmoored from a point. Try to imagine in geometry a line, that has no starting point. This is impossible, and yet this is what idealism asks us to do. As time is closer to its point than is a circumference, idealism is closer to the aeviternal point of the cosmos than in materialism. But, without appealing to that which is dimesionless, the line of geometry can make no account of its beginning, idealism lacks in kind.

As John Vervaeke mentions, Platonism makes a better case for science than Cartesianism, something that he says is in academia growing in recognition. Physics and many philosophies lack an ontology, and they don't even no it. The result are some of the most confused ideas in history (illusionism, many worlds, super determinism, panpsychism, solipsism, etc.). I think that in light of quantum mechanics and neuroscience, we should ground physical science into a Platonist ontology, one that, according to both Plato and the Vedanta, is tripartite.

Hello OAR,

Thank you for bringing your thoughts to the forum, and welcome! I am not familiar with the philosophy of Wolfgang Smith. The notes I have added below are just my spontaneous, preliminary replies to your approach to understanding reality.

The two most obvious aspects of reality are 1) your consciousness; 2) material objects external to you.

What distinguishes material objects from mind is the fact that material objects have BOTH a spatial and temporal existence, whereas mind LACKS a spatial location (there is no thought in centimeters or grams). Thoughts ARE indeed temporal, however (reasoning happens as a process in time). This means that material objects have two bounds, a spatial AND a temporal bound. Thoughts (consciousness) has ONLY one bound, i.e., it is bound by time alone.

Noticeable in your train of thought:
- Mind, thoughts, consciousness and the activity that produces them are all the same indistinguishable thing.
- What appears to our experience as obvious at first is admitted without scrutiny as the true ground of reality.


Because consciousness is limited by time, it fails as a fundamental theory. That is to say, the foundation of all being cannot have a bound; Idealism does.

The process through which our thoughts become known to us - as thought-images or thought-perceptions - is indeed time-bound, and cannot constitute the foundation of reality. Idealism, however, does not suggest that.
Moreover, the “what-if” approach of throwing out theories of reality, in order to then evaluate how reasonable they seem to be, in comparison with other theories, with respect to how many supposedly desirable properties they satisfy, etc. - is a very common, but flawed approach to understanding the nature of reality.

We need more. Whereas material has a spatial and temporal bound, and consciousness only a temporal bound, something that has NEITHER a spatial or temporal bound is required.

Although there is sense in the aspiration of inquiring about the nature of reality beyond spacetime, this whole statement is problematic, because it is built on the wrong foundation that consciousness is equal to thoughts, thus it is time-bound, and that the material world is an obviously separate “aspect of reality”.

Consider the point as understood in geometry. In geometry, a point has no dimensions, and yet from it comes all geometric dimensions. From the point extends a line, which is one dimensional. At the end of a line comes a sweep which causes a circle, a circumference. The line together with its circumference defines two bounds, each emerging form a point which has no bound. The line, which is one dimension, can be likened to time. The line can extend forever, though it will always be bound to one dimension. The circumference is analogous to space, as it is that which restricts, demarcates a location. Whereas the line offers a plenitude for which events can happen, the circumference constricts "where" an object can be. Given this, the line (time) which is free from the parameters of a circumference (space), is situated ontologically HIGHER than the spatial. In a phrase: Time is more fundamental than space.

With this, we find ourselves staring at two strata in a hierarchical ontology, i.e., the temporal and the spatial. The two most obvious aspects of reality being 1) your consciousness and 2) material objects external to you; we can say the same for time and space, given their analogical relationship to consciousness (in time, but free from space) and material objects (in space and in time).

But the line of geometry nor circumference could possibly cause themselves. They are inseparable from the geometric point from which they sprang. To account for their existence, the line and circumference require something transcendent of themselves. Because the line is analogous to consciousness, and circumference to material, we can safely say that consciousness nor materiality could possibly cause themselves.

This is a nice geometrical analogy that has meaning in itself, but fails to reach the conclusions it is tasked with, because it rests on flawed premises, as said.

And this is where idealism falls short. Idealism, like the line of geometry, cannot account for its beginning. Because, under idealism, consciousness is the ultimate foundation of reality, it fails by virtue of the fact that consciousness is a process, and all processes happen in time, and are bound time. The true foundation of reality is that which causes the process, and anything that causes a process can't already be that process, a metaphysical impossibility.

Again, here there is confusion about what consciousness is, what thought perception is, thinking activity, etc.


To restore a more authentic philosophy we must understanding that there is a fixed point of reality that causes time and space, thus can account for them both. It is this that caused the analogues of those cosmic bounds: consciousness and materiality. That point is bound NEITHER by time or space. This point is what allows for the most important aspects of reality: the now; facts; the truth; being; intelligibility, knowing. Idealism's "consciousness" being a process is analogous to reasoning without knowing. Reasoning in absence of truth will lead one to schizophrenic madness, or more appropriately, the madness of dissociative identity disorder. Without a cause of consciousness and materiality, we are unmoored, floating adrift in a see of meaninglessness, nothing to ground a fact of the matter. Idealism, while better than materialism, offers such much meaninglessness given that it would have us to believe that processes in time (consciousness) have no beginning.

Searching for a stable cause (of space and time boundaries) in the described context is understandable, in the same way in which trying to find orientation and solid ground in something is, in general, an understandable need. However, it fails to recognize that the concept itself of searching for a cause, is time-bound. It is problematic to say that one wants to find a fixed point that causes time and space, without noticing that the desired causality is in itself a concept that lives within the boundaries of at least time (and maybe also space).


The timeless point, together with the dimension of time and the parameters of space, define a hierarchical tripartite ontology. This is of course not original to me, as it is both Platonic schools and Vedic, restored most recently by the invaluable Dr. Wolfgang Smith.

Lowest within this ontology is the material world, i.e., objects which indeed exist yet do not themselves perceive (molecules, chairs, galaxies). These objects are constricted by both space and time, and yet by virtue of the fact that they own QUALITIES, means that they are "corporeal," they can be perceived, and thus part of the real world. Because corporeal objects have qualities, they cannot reduce to physics, though physics can describe a quantitative aspect of them. Corporeal objects are bound by both space and a time.

In this tripartite cosmos, a level above the corporeal is the mental which is mind or soul. I believe that idealism has misdefined consciousness,and so here I will call the consciousness of idealism "iconsciouness." This is because an authentic understanding of consciousness knows consciousness as a nomen dei (name of God) and not a kind of non-self-aware, untethered process bound by nature. (Consiousness as nomen dei is a topic for another time). And so, the second level in the tripartite cosmos, the mental is the consciousness of idealism. The mental is bound by time but not space. The mental or iconsciouness, is likened to time, which is above space, which is why idealism is philosophically "above" materialism.

Materialism is restricted to the spatial and Idealism is relegated to time. Idealism incorrectly places iconsciouness as the highest, "the ground of all being," when in fact iconsciouness is situated only in middle, i.e., it is above space, yet because iconsciousness is bound by time, it is beneath that which is timeless.

This model has to begin with, the problem to be a model, an hypothesis built on unscrutinized premises about the most obvious aspect of reality. It would be better to start from experience, yes, but to proceed much more carefully at the beginning so as to not drag forward some inaccurate conclusions all along.

I am not saying that the timeless point of the cosmos is God, for even the point of geometry must be put there by a geometer. The cosmic point, which is spaceless and timeless, therefore was itself "put there" by the cosmic geometer, God.

[Objects Are Real]

That would assume that mind "is" receptor cells, electromagnetic waves, chemistry, and biology. Idealism does not hold that this is the case. The apple's circumference is not "the" apple, in fact the circumference is determined by the real being, the real apple. Similarly, receptor cells, stimulus and sensation are not the same thing as perception. James Gibson proved this. Gibson, in his "Ecological Approach to Visual Perception," reveals how it is that physicists, neuroscientists, psychologists, etc., have always misdefined perception by virtue that they make it identical to its physical apparatuses. As mind is not brain, stimulus and sensation is not perception. Receptor cells, stimulus and sensation are spatial, i.e., they have either mass, momentum, frequency, charge, etc., and yet a perception, i.e., the experience, has no spatial parameter as there is no mass or momentum to an experience, nor can you cut one in half. Perceptions are not spatial, they are not identical to materials like receptor cells and stimuli.

The two most obvious aspects of reality are 1) your consciousness; 2) material objects external to you.

What distinguishes material objects from mind is the fact that material objects have BOTH a spatial and temporal existence, whereas mind LACKS a spatial location (there is no thought in centimeters or grams). Thoughts ARE indeed temporal, however (reasoning happens as a process in time). This means that material objects have two bounds, a spatial AND a temporal bound. Thoughts (consciousness) has ONLY one bound, i.e., it is bound by time alone.

No idealist that I know of restricts consciousness or mind to thought. It also includes sense perceptions, which are spatial, and since sense perceptions are within mind, the mind is spatial as well as temporal.

I believe that idealism has misdefined consciousness,and so here I will call the consciousness of idealism "iconsciouness." This is because an authentic understanding of consciousness knows consciousness as a nomen dei (name of God) and not a kind of non-self-aware, untethered process bound by nature. (Consiousness as nomen dei is a topic for another time). And so, the second level in the tripartite cosmos, the mental is the consciousness of idealism. The mental is bound by time but not space. The mental or iconsciouness, is likened to time, which is above space, which is why idealism is philosophically "above" materialism.

Materialism is restricted to the spatial and Idealism is relegated to time. Idealism incorrectly places iconsciouness as the highest, "the ground of all being," when in fact iconsciouness is situated only in middle, i.e., it is above space, yet because iconsciousness is bound by time, it is beneath that which is timeless.

I am not saying that the timeless point of the cosmos is God, for even the point of geometry must be put there by a geometer. The cosmic point, which is spaceless and timeless, therefore was itself "put there" by the cosmic geometer, God.

I am curious as to how you think idealists have defined consciousness. What I, an idealist, mean by consciousness is, ultimately, the Mind of God, while my consciousness is just an idea in God's Mind.

[Federica]

Hi Federica, and thank you for the response.

It is the consciousness of idealism that demotes the real thing to thinking and mind. This is why I term the naturalistic "consciousness" of idealism as "iconsciousness" as compared to actual consciousness, which constitutes in fact a nomen Dei, (names of God). Idealists, while more reasonable than materialists, are stuck in the domain of reasoning alone, and without recognition of that aeviternal point, cannot not "see" consciousness as nomen Dei. Is reasoning anything in absence of truth? Without it, reasoning surely would be futile. Because truth exists, reasoning blissfully, one could say instantaneously, transforms to knowing, something that reasoning cannot accomplish on its own grounds. Idealism is reasoning which is why Bernardo ascribes to it a naturalistic and subjective process. iconsciouness then is unmoored from a point. Try to imagine in geometry a line, that has no starting point. This is impossible, and yet this is what idealism asks us to do. As time is closer to its point than is a circumference, idealism is closer to the aeviternal point of the cosmos than in materialism. But, without appealing to that which is dimesionless, the line of geometry can make no account of its beginning, idealism lacks in kind.

As John Vervaeke mentions, Platonism makes a better case for science than Cartesianism, something that he says is in academia growing in recognition. Physics and many philosophies lack an ontology, and they don't even no it. The result are some of the most confused ideas in history (illusionism, many worlds, super determinism, panpsychism, solipsism, etc.). I think that in light of quantum mechanics and neuroscience, we should ground physical science into a Platonist ontology, one that, according to both Plato and the Vedanta, is tripartite.

Then let's set aside Bernardo's idealism and its naturalistic mind-at-large, and also any other idealism that considers consciousness only made of reasoning. And let's say that reasoning is to discover the truth of reality. What is the next step in your view?

[ScottRoberts]

That would assume that mind "is" receptor cells, electromagnetic waves, chemistry, and biology. Idealism does not hold that this is the case. The apple's circumference is not "the" apple, in fact the circumference is determined by the real being, the real apple. Similarly, receptor cells, stimulus and sensation are not the same thing as perception. James Gibson proved this. Gibson, in his "Ecological Approach to Visual Perception," reveals how it is that physicists, neuroscientists, psychologists, etc., have always misdefined perception by virtue that they make it identical to its physical apparatuses. As mind is not brain, stimulus and sensation is not perception. Receptor cells, stimulus and sensation are spatial, i.e., they have either mass, momentum, frequency, charge, etc., and yet a perception, i.e., the experience, has no spatial parameter as there is no mass or momentum to an experience, nor can you cut one in half. Perceptions are not spatial, they are not identical to materials like receptor cells and stimuli.

So, we agree that sense perceptions are in the mind, and we differ in that I say they are spatial, and you say they are not. Instead, you restrict the word 'spatial' to describe that which can be measured in terms of mass, length, and so on, and you point out that one cannot measure a sense perception in those ways.

But what is a measurement? Is it not just correlating one sense percept with another, for example, a tape measure wrapped around a tree trunk with the tree trunk? Now the measuring can get a lot more complicated, involving microscopes and cloud chambers and so forth, but isn't it all at the end correlating a lot of sense percepts? Note that it is mind doing the correlating. And note that we do not need to postulate a self-existing space beyond the spatial notions we get in sense perceptions, e.g., this is next to that, this is bigger than that, that is farther away from me than this. Measurement just refines these notions.

The idealist claims that the physical (spatial) world is nothing but sense percepts. Well, we might add whatever concepts we have that make sense of the consistent measurements we make of it. But then one has to ask what is the nature of that which causes us to have this sense percept rather than another, to make these correlations rather than those. The materialist or dualist says it is mindless matter. The idealist says it is other minds (e.g., God's). Now we can debate which view is right, but no measurement or physics or biological experiment can tell us. What we are not entitled to do is what, it seems to me you are doing, is just assert that the idealist is wrong (like when you speak of the "real apple").

[Objects Are Real]

If my conception of idealism is incorrect, please forgive me. However, from "satchitananda," it seems that idealism is chit in absence of sit and ananda. What I mean is that consciousness is not its own free-floating thing, yet is part of a triple world that is a unification, a whole, it is one satchitananda, a name of God. There is no chit without sit and ananda. My instinct tells me that idealism separates isolates chit from its whole form. This tripartite view is also Platonic.

I agree that perception is required in order for a person to take a measurement from which is derived a quantity. The quantitative aspect of the trunk is indeed associated with the real (corporeal) object and this is why such quantities are technologically useful. In this, the Platonist accepts quantities as a basis for the empirical findings of physics. But, we know better than to be coaxed into thinking that physics is an ontology or is the cause of the corporeal world. Of the trunk physics can only see circumference, it cannot see the brown bark. And thus, physics gives a partial view of reality, a model only - an abstraction. Despite the demands of materialists, abstractions like physics cannot be its own ontology. Physics is in desperate need of one. This is to say that once we have a real ontology, can we see that qualities are primary and quantities secondary, and knowing this will show us where physics properly fits within an authentic ontology. The materialist places physics toward the top or highest, and yet an authentic tripartite ontology clearly sees it at the bottom, rather as not even ontological rather only a model of that which is.

Concerning the difference between sensation and perception, one should consider James Gibson. He gives to us the crucial difference between classical and ecological optics.

In “The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception” (1979), Gibson describes how scientists have incorrectly identified humans as simply organized “parts” of a physical environment. This is an attempt to make of us “systems,” entities which in the final count amount to nothing more than physics.

By mis-defining terms like "stimulation" and "sensation," the physicist has created a great confusion, a muddle no less significant than when one "misplaces concreteness."

Per Gibson, “If light in the exact sense of the term is never seen as such, it follows that seeing the environment cannot be based on seeing light as such. The stimulation of the receptors in the retina cannot be seen… The supposed sensations resulting from this stimulation are not the data for perception. Stimulation may be a necessary condition for seeing, but it is not sufficient. There has to be stimulus information available to the perceptual system, not just stimulation of the receptors.” Gibson continues, “…what we mean when we say that vision depends on light is that it depends on illumination and on sources of illumination. We do not necessarily mean that we have to see light or have sensations of light in order to see anything else.”

Ultimately, the takeaway from Gibson is that when we see the red of a rose, we are not seeing "a thing of the mind" as Descartes or the materialist would have, we are per Gibson seeing some "out there" in the real world, we see the actual environment as it really is.

[Objects Are Real]

Ah, yes. The next step, perhaps, is to do as Plato or Christ would advise, which is to contemplate and pray. The ancients understood this process, but knew that it didn't come on the cheap. Required was purification of the body and mind (reasoning) so that one could even begin to ask such questions. These questions, "My relationship to the eternal" are so profound that one should make him or herself a vessel that is able to receive wisdom that comes with such a journey. As John Vervaeke says, "We are a culture of autodidacts - people who think that the more knowledge they compile from Google the more wise they are, when the truth is that they don't even know where to look for wisdom."

Hi Federica, and thank you for the response.

It is the consciousness of idealism that demotes the real thing to thinking and mind. This is why I term the naturalistic "consciousness" of idealism as "iconsciousness" as compared to actual consciousness, which constitutes in fact a nomen Dei, (names of God). Idealists, while more reasonable than materialists, are stuck in the domain of reasoning alone, and without recognition of that aeviternal point, cannot not "see" consciousness as nomen Dei. Is reasoning anything in absence of truth? Without it, reasoning surely would be futile. Because truth exists, reasoning blissfully, one could say instantaneously, transforms to knowing, something that reasoning cannot accomplish on its own grounds. Idealism is reasoning which is why Bernardo ascribes to it a naturalistic and subjective process. iconsciouness then is unmoored from a point. Try to imagine in geometry a line, that has no starting point. This is impossible, and yet this is what idealism asks us to do. As time is closer to its point than is a circumference, idealism is closer to the aeviternal point of the cosmos than in materialism. But, without appealing to that which is dimesionless, the line of geometry can make no account of its beginning, idealism lacks in kind.

As John Vervaeke mentions, Platonism makes a better case for science than Cartesianism, something that he says is in academia growing in recognition. Physics and many philosophies lack an ontology, and they don't even no it. The result are some of the most confused ideas in history (illusionism, many worlds, super determinism, panpsychism, solipsism, etc.). I think that in light of quantum mechanics and neuroscience, we should ground physical science into a Platonist ontology, one that, according to both Plato and the Vedanta, is tripartite.

Then let's set aside Bernardo's idealism and its naturalistic mind-at-large, and also any other idealism that considers consciousness only made of reasoning. And let's say that reasoning is to discover the truth of reality. What is the next step in your view?

[Federica]

Hi Federica, and thank you for the response.

It is the consciousness of idealism that demotes the real thing to thinking and mind. This is why I term the naturalistic "consciousness" of idealism as "iconsciousness" as compared to actual consciousness, which constitutes in fact a nomen Dei, (names of God). Idealists, while more reasonable than materialists, are stuck in the domain of reasoning alone, and without recognition of that aeviternal point, cannot not "see" consciousness as nomen Dei. Is reasoning anything in absence of truth? Without it, reasoning surely would be futile. Because truth exists, reasoning blissfully, one could say instantaneously, transforms to knowing, something that reasoning cannot accomplish on its own grounds. Idealism is reasoning which is why Bernardo ascribes to it a naturalistic and subjective process. iconsciouness then is unmoored from a point. Try to imagine in geometry a line, that has no starting point. This is impossible, and yet this is what idealism asks us to do. As time is closer to its point than is a circumference, idealism is closer to the aeviternal point of the cosmos than in materialism. But, without appealing to that which is dimesionless, the line of geometry can make no account of its beginning, idealism lacks in kind.

As John Vervaeke mentions, Platonism makes a better case for science than Cartesianism, something that he says is in academia growing in recognition. Physics and many philosophies lack an ontology, and they don't even no it. The result are some of the most confused ideas in history (illusionism, many worlds, super determinism, panpsychism, solipsism, etc.). I think that in light of quantum mechanics and neuroscience, we should ground physical science into a Platonist ontology, one that, according to both Plato and the Vedanta, is tripartite.

Then let's set aside Bernardo's idealism and its naturalistic mind-at-large, and also any other idealism that considers consciousness only made of reasoning. And let's say that reasoning is to discover the truth of reality. What is the next step in your view?

Ah, yes. The next step, perhaps, is to do as Plato or Christ would advise, which is to contemplate and pray. The ancients understood this process, but knew that it didn't come on the cheap. Required was purification of the body and mind (reasoning) so that one could even begin to ask such questions. These questions, "My relationship to the eternal" are so profound that one should make him or herself a vessel that is able to receive wisdom that comes with such a journey. As John Vervaeke says, "We are a culture of autodidacts - people who think that the more knowledge they compile from Google the more wise they are, when the truth is that they don't even know where to look for wisdom."

Right, the ancients understood this process, but they were executing it from a different evolutionary standpoint and configuration, compared to present day. Spiritually, emotionally, logically, and even physically, they were 'wired' quite differently. Therefore, the subsequent evolutionary phase in which we find ourselves today requires to be carefully taken into account, in order for us to find that same connection to the profound questions.

Because we don't have in our epoch the same natural clairvoyance and sense of transpersonal connectedness the ancients had, we need to rediscover, or recreate, that reverence and readiness to become a vessel for wisdom and love, through the leverage of our own present-day, more individualized and rationalized qualities. This constitution, which is also my and your constitution right now - even with all the deviations and mishaps it provokes in today's culture - is not a 'cosmic mistake' and cannot be simply looked away from. Instead, it needs to be thoroughly understood in its context, and infused with expansive awareness from within, before it can be turned inside out and concentrated toward the question of our relation to the eternal, and the true source of Wisdom and Love. Don't you think?

Parallel to that, my question on the next steps in your view was also asking about epistemological next steps. In other words, in your view, why/how are objects real?