Comment by markhahn
6 days ago
we need to distinguish accounts that are merely self-consistent, and those that are more useful.
the reality-is-illusion meme is self-consistent (panpsychism, simulationism, dream-of-god-ism, whatever). merely being self-consistent isn't good enough.
the alternative (and there is only one) is physicalism and its epistemology, science. the main appeal of this is parsimony, often referred to as Occam's Razor.
> those that are more useful.
Oh it is useful. It answers questions like "why do reality exist". "who created it", "What was before it"...Or may be I should say it does not really answer them but makes the questions irrelevant.
Just like how earth centric hypothesis posed questions like "Why is everything circling the earth and why is earth special", and heliocentric hypothesis made that irrelevant by proving that it is just an illusion caused by observing from the earth.
It makes the questions incoherent.
This isnt a benefit, it's a sign that the semantics you're giving language fail to actually model its meaning.
The position isnt self-consistent, unless you engage in the typical idealist peformance of pretending not to know what these questions mean.
In the end, idealism is defeated by the very implausibility of this performance. The idealist, is implicated in the rich ontology of the real world by the very use of language itself. Presupposed is this ontology, and the ordinary truth of ordinary propositions requires it.
If the question, "what was here before I existed?" is meaningful, then idealism is wrong. And it is meaningful, therefore it is wrong.
>what was here before I existed?
This is no longer meaningful. It would be like a thing inside a painting on a paper asking "what was here on this paper, before this paper existed"?
Space and time are illusions of consciousness. It does not make sense to ask "where", when there is no space, and "when", when there is no time.
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Not good enough for whom exactly?