Idealism

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What do you think about idealism? I mean the view that mind is primary, that matter only exists where there is a mind to which it exists, or some such variety.

I've long sympathised with Berkely's idealism. I think it is generally acepted within academia that Berkeley's philosophy was hown to be wrong, but I don't see how he is wrong as we can never leave experience (mind) to say that it is wrong.

Another possible implication of idealism is that the world as matter was first of all thought. I think this is a Platonic or Hegelian view. I am sympathetic to the suggestion that consciousness (mind) could not arise out of matter but somehow had to have been there all along waiting for matter to 'catch up'. I mean, how could consciousness come about if it was not already possible, and if it was already possible, where did this possibility com from?

Come on. Someone must have some thoughts about idealism they'd like to share.

"Idealists want to change reality because it isn't ideal.
I have a similar problem with the ideal, it isn't real."

I think the objection from solipsism, argued in some form, most likely works. That said I don't think it is logical to embrace it. World-view requires initial assumptions to work from and in practice we need to make them, if our world-view is to have any explanitory power. I would personally argue that a world-view which increases explanitory power is preferable if one is dealing with empirically equal propositions. For example, the a and b theory of time are empirically equal, so a view in which the passage of time is real is preferable if you want validate your senses as being reliable. Neither choice has a confirm able truth value, so you can pick. Picking one that gives us a reason to doubt that our minds can and do regularly perceive truth, is not really logical if you want to establish your mind as being epistemologically important. Since I have yet to encounter an epistemology with no mind, I am inclined to accept results based choices, in lieu of speific defeaters.

Berkeley gives us a position which requires fewer leaps and which depends on our ideas but gives us reason to doubt the reality of those ideas. As such I would pick the more powerful view, if the question is not resolvable. In a similar way, I perfer a view which gives proper function, validates moral facts and has a basis for establishing free will. Hence why I resist naturalist accounts, since they undermine those three things.

I like the idea. I find a materialist explanation depressing. Though who knows what the real truth is.

Okay, so how can consciousness have come about if it was not already possible that it would, and if it was already possible that it would, then what would be basis of that possibility?

Question might need sharpening.

The mind is a computer that processes data taken from the senses, but that data is of real material and is not created by the mind which indirectly observes it. The planet Mars exists whether we see it or not and its topographical features exist whether there is a telescope or other optic system to see them and the land exists regardless of whether a robot or animal or human exists to see such or not. Even if there were no observer, the items able to be observed would still exist independently. (And items which today are unable to be observed directly, such as atoms, quarks, neutrinos, exosolar planets, exist regardless of whether a mind comprehends them or not.)