Are you a realist or an idealist?

Are you a realist or an idealist?


  • Total voters
    13
Definitions:

Realism is the view that it is possible (in theory) that an objective world can exist independently of any subjectivity whatsoever.

Idealism is the view that it is impossible (in theory) for an objective world to exist independently of some kind of subjectivity.

Thus defined, are you a realist or an idealist?
 
Seems both subjective and shared; a process at one perception and a result at another; random and not random; spatial and temporal; a wave and a particle; squished space and expanded time; a pattern and a meaning; energy and matter; an electric field and a magnetic field; squished time and expanded space; idealistic and realistic; internal and external...
 
I voted for realist because I don't know how anyone could say that it's not possible in principle. Furthermore, it's clear that some sort of objective world exists or else we would all experience independent realities. Even if the objective world is the product of some sort of idealist meta-mind, it's still objective.

Perhaps by "some kind of subjectivity" you mean a meta-mind, but there is no way to demonstrate that it is a meta-mind versus some more physical sort of thing.

~~ Paul
 
I voted for realist because I don't know how anyone could say that it's not possible in principle. Furthermore, it's clear that some sort of objective world exists or else we would all experience independent realities. Even if the objective world is the product of some sort of idealist meta-mind, it's still objective.

Perhaps by "some kind of subjectivity" you mean a meta-mind, but there is no way to demonstrate that it is a meta-mind versus some more physical sort of thing.

~~ Paul

The external world certainly seems shared... but I still have a subjective experience of it. Colour, hallucinations etc. seem to point at this. But I would agree that once something has become a fact in the external world, it affects everybody in a shared way, just as if there is a continual objective state, even if there isn't.

I have moved a little on that... I wrote out a thought experiment last week, which sorta began to convince me that there may not be much point in arguing for either idealism or realism.

It seems stronger (to me) to argue that my experience is subjective, and also shared.
 
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