"Reality Is Mental" Is A More Rational Proposition Than Its Negation

IntroductionI don't have a problem with Con's definition for now (unless he tries to trap me in semantics later). The Mental Exists Without A Shadow Of A DoubtThe mental exists, and this is not a reasonably doubted position. It is not a reasonably doubted position because doubt is itself a mental state. Ergo, to "doubt" presupposes that the mental exists (this would be a self-refuting doubt to doubt that the mental exists as doubt is mental itself). However, anything one posits as non-mental can be doubted with no such trouble. Perhaps the wet and mushy brain is all an illusion just as the rest of the universe. However, the mind cannot be an illusion as an illusion implies a mind that is having the illusion. As Neuroscientist Sam Harris notes:"Consciousness is the one thing in this world that cannot be an illusion. Consciousness is the fact of experience, the fact that something is happening, the fact that the lights are on in some basic sense even if we don't understand anything... So, I think consciousness cannot be an illusion." - Sam Harris [2]Also, empirical claims of knowledge about the world fall in the category of a posteriori knowledge:"A posteriori knowledge: a claim is justified a posteriori if the reason for thinking it true dependent of experience."[3]For example, if someone experiences a "tree" and makes the inference that a tree exists based on that experience; that is a posteriori knowledge. The point being that the very idea that a physical world exists is based on our experiences. If consciousness doesn't fundamentally exist, and is just an illusion or emergent epiphenomenon then this undermines the very reason to believe in a brain and physical reality to begin with; which is conscious experience. The Father of Quantum Theory, Max Planck, drives this point home:"I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard 'matter' as derivative from consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness." - Max Planck [4]This isn't confusing epistemology with ontology either. The mind must be ontologically fundamental in order to have experiences and epistemic knowledge. So, the mental has to exist to have knowledge, and it has to exist in order to posit anything physical like a brain or anything of the sort as we only know these things through conscious experiences. We cannot downplay consciousness or the mind using physical data, because what we call "physical data" is only realized through consciousness in the first place.What About Empirical Objects... Aren't They Non-Mental?Imagine you are standing in front of a red car. What you are identifying the "car" as with regards to observation is just a bunch of shapes and colors that are aspects of conscious visual experience. When you reach out and touch it that sensation is a conscious experience. The smell sensation is a conscious experience (and so on and so forth). Physicalists are quick to mistake consistencies of modalities of conscious experiences as a valid inference that there exists something outside of the mental world causing all of our mental experiences. This is fallacious. What we call objects are just aspects of consciousness that we don't identify ourselves with. When you are in a dream for example, that world is purely inside mind, but you don't identify yourself with the whole dream only an aspect of that dream (the mountains and people in the dream aren't "you" even know they are in "your" mind). Similarly, all the objects we experience are still just in mind, even if they are aspects of the mind we do not identity ourselves with. As Dr. Bernardo Kastrup explains: "One thing has come up several times in arguments against my position which is Monistic Idealism. The argument is this… Our perceptions of the word are evidence that there is a world outside mind. This argument is based on a logical misunderstanding. Our perceptions are a modality of our flow of subjective, conscious experiences. They are only evidence for that modality of conscious experiences, which happen, obviously, in mind. The only thing that perceptions of the empirical world prove is that there is a part of our flow of subjective experiences that we do not identify ourselves with. We identify ourselves with our thoughts and emotions; not our perceptions." - Dr. Bernardo Kastrup [5] Now, there is definitely a difference between what we call a "dream" and what we call "reality". The essential difference is that one is private, and the other is collectively shared:"A dream you dream alone is only a dream. A dream you dream together is reality." - John Lennon [6]If something happens inside a system, then it is better to explain it by something else inside the system or the system itself instead of jumping outside the system (that would seem to violate Occam's Razor and be an unnecessary assumption). In fact, this is the reasoning employed by many Atheists with regards to the universe and why God isn't needed. I use the same logic but with different variables. Since we have experiences in our minds, it is more rational and reasonable for look for an explanation inside mind instead of outside it. What Are The Causes For Our Perceptions If Not From Something Outside Mind? Just like how our subconscious produces our perceptions private dreams, our collective subconscious produces our perceptions in the collectively shared dream known as reality. Does this imply some sort of Dualism between the "subconscious" and "conscious"? No. The subconscious is just an aspect of consciousness that is obfuscated by the focal point of awareness; it isn't some fundamentally different thing and is still inside mind. So, because perceptions of an empirical world are inside mind, it is more rational to assume the cause of these perceptions are inside mind as well (just like how if something happens inside what people call the "universe", it is more rational to assume the cause is inside the "universe" and not outside of it). The Interaction ProblemWe know the mind is a fundamentally existing thing. Lets assume there is some non-mental aspects outside mind causing these experiences; how is that even possible? In order for something completely non-mental to cause a change in something mental they would have to share properties with it to serve as a bridge for this interaction (the mental would have to have non-mental properties, and the non-mental would have to have mental properties). However, if this happens then the non-mental isn't really non-mental at all (as it has mental properties which are necessary for the bridge of interaction). Thus, non-mental causing changes in the mental seems to actually be contradictory.Digital Physics And Integrated InformationWhen we introspect, we encounter integrated information and this is what are consciousness is. This is also the basis for the Integrated Information Theory of consciousness [7]. Also, the Wheeler-DeWitt equation describes all the information in the universe, and it is integrated as is not decomposable into a collection of causally independent parts. We already know the universe most likely boils down to information based on Digital Physics (Which has been shown to be a better way to model reality [8]), but the fact that it is integrated entails the universe is a conscious state. Thus, it must either be a conscious mind or an aspect of a conscious mind. Sources[1] http://en.wikipedia.org...[2] Video Source (Sam Harris Explains Why God Exists)[3] http://publish.uwo.ca...[4] http://www.endlesssearch.co.uk...[5] Video Source (Materialism verses Idealism)[6] http://www.goodreads.com...[7] http://www.ploscompbiol.org...[8] http://brianwhitworth.com...http://www.youtube.com...http://www.youtube.com...