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

***Introduction***Con starts off with a bare-assertion of a red herring, then states that if everything I said was true the resolution would not be affirmed. This is not true. For example, if the Interaction Problem holds then there can be no non-mental world causing changes in the mental, meaning that belief that all is mental is more rational because a non-mental world couldn't even interact with our minds. My opponent then claims the brain is "physical" (as in, not in consciousness), but gives no argument for this. If my position is true, then the brain is just another aspect of consciousness. This is clearly begging the question on Con's behalf.***Rebutting My Opponent's Objections***"This statement is extremely misleading and vague."This is yet another bare-assertion. Why believe what I said was misleading and vague? "Now the idea that touch is a conscious, does literally nothing to affirm the resolution, it merely means that you're aware you're touching something."Sensations are mental. Trying to reach outside the mental to explain the mental is a violation of Occam's Razor when we don't know that an "outside the mental" even exists as my position could easily be true (but my opponent concedes the mental certainly exists). Ergo, if all else fails, my position adheres to Parsimony more, which is more rational. We cannot doubt the mental exists, but we can doubt the non-mental exists. Why assume a non-mental cause for mental events? We don't even know if non-mental causation is possible. The belief in the non-mental is radical, but the belief in other minds? Not so much, as you know at least one mind can exist (your own). How Is "Touch" Possible If All Is Mental?This one is easy. All we have to do is look at dreams... Last night, I dreamed I was in some random mall that my subconscious conjured up. I "touched" the wall inside with my hand in the dream, but does that mean that the wall was outside mind, and my hand was outside mind? Of course not. The entire scenario is inside mind even though there is what we call "touching" going on. So, if reality is just a collectively shared dream then there is no reason to think "touch" inside this dream is inconceivable. I just don't really find this a good argument from Con. Bernado Kastrup's QuoteCon says that this is convoluted, but because Con doesn't understand it, that doesn't mean it is too complex and hard to understand for others. Also, it does not express Solipsism at all. As I said before, to account for the difference between "dreams" and "reality"; one is private and the other is collectively shared (as does Bernardo). But, "collectively shared" entails other minds. So, Solipsism is not a necessary consequence of this view. Now, Con says that because our perceptions are mental, that doesn't mean that what we perceive is non-mental. That is false. What we perceive are aspects of our experiences; which are mental (all one has to do is experience to know this). The materialist could say this is still caused by something outside mind, but there is no reason to believe that; it is an irrational unnecessary assumption. How Do Minds Interact?Minds have mental properties. Mental properties are what allow for a bridge when it comes to interaction in mind. The non-mental (like a mind-independent atom) has no mental properties by definition, so, without theose shared properties; it cannot interact with the mental. "How is one to verify if another existing mind is not just a subconscious extension of one's own mind?" We cannot know for sure, but as I have argued, the existence of other minds explains reality better than Solipsism. The Materialist cannot completely affirm the existence of other minds eitheras there is a P-Zombie problem:"Zombies are hypothetical creatures of the sort that philosophers have been known to cherish. A zombie is physically identical to a normal human being, but completely lacks conscious experience. Zombies look and behave like the conscious beings that we know and love, but 'all is dark inside.' There is nothing it is like to be a zombie." - David Chalmers [1]For all Con knows I am a P-Zombie, and everyone he knows. His position cannot prove that other minds/ consciousness exist any more than mine.If Things That Are Perceived Through The Mind Are Inside Mind, Does That Mean They Are Me?This argument assumes my mind is me. Even if this was true, this is still a fallacy of composition. Even if my mind is me, that doesn't mean that what my mind is composed of, or is in my mind is me. That would be like saying that because a thought in in my mind; that the thought is me. This is clearly false. Either way, my mind is not me. As I said in my first round, there is only an aspect of the mind that we identify ourselves with; empirical objects are aspects of the mind we do not identify ourselves with but are none the less in mind. The Last Two Sections Of My Last RoundMy opponent only mentions the Digital Physics but completely ignores the Interaction Problem; thus it still stands.To quickly explain why believing in Digital Physics is more rational, Brian Whitworth mapped out Classical Physics and Digital Physics to see which theory explained more observations. Digital Physics won by a landslide (refer to Table 1.1 [2]). Sort of like how The Big Bang Theory explains more facts than the Steady State Theory (that's why scientists believe it), Digital Physics explains more facts than a non-informational Physical Reality. That coupled in with Totoni's IIT, which is known a priori, we are left with an Idealist Picture of reality (not conclusively proven true, but a way more rational and simpler view of reality). Do I Need To Offer A Non-Physical Mechanism For The Existence Of "The Mental"?Of course not. Only if the mental was not fundamental, and was emergent or contingent would we have to look for some mechanism. Since that is not the case for my position; no such explanation on my part is required.Is The Brain The Reason For Consciousness?Con cites experiments in which certain brain activity can activate and deactivate consciousness or aspects of it. Firstly, this type of argument assumes that the brain is outside consciousness in the first place (which begs the question). If what we call the brain is just an aspect of the mental, like objects in dreams are part of the mental, then the brain causing changes in the mental is ontologically equivalent to "the mental acting on the mental"; which harms Idealism none as it says all is mental anyway. Secondly, we don't know that consciousness is lost. Memory loss is associated with being "unconscious" in many cases, so for all we know, they are having experiences but cannot recall them. Also, even if this wasn't the case, it would only the the networking of consciousness being effected; not consciousness itself. The third response is that many experiments say the exact opposite; consciousness actually survives as the brain is dead: "Dr Pim van Lommel and colleagues from the Rijnstate Hospital in Arnhem, Holland, investigated the experiences of 344 heart patients resuscitated after cardiac arrest. All had been clinically dead at some point during their treatment, says a report in The Lancet today... The researchers said: 'Our results show that medical factors cannot account for occurrence of NDE..." [3]Plus, I wasn't quoting Lennon as an authority, I liked his wording. I can also still quote Harris regardless of his Atheism. ***Conclusion***I was able to show that all of my opponent's objections miserably failed. Even if they didn't for the sake of argument, the BOP is shared, and Con did not provide any valid arguments for his side and spent most of his time rebutting my arguments without any real solid foundation for his. I think it is clear I have sustained my BOP.***Sources*** [1] http://philpapers.org...[2] http://brianwhitworth.com...[3] http://www.dailymail.co.uk...