Idealism

Idealism, the opposite of materialism, is the belief that matter is non-existent and that everything seen in the world is a mental experience or event. Everything that we experience as ‘material’ – solid object or matter – is experienced by our senses and creates a mental event, or idea. We can argue that this mental event is a response to the actual substance but we can never really be sure that the object really exists, as Descartes so nicely pointed out. We could be dreaming or deceived in some way. The mechanism of our senses is part of the physical world as well and so is unreliable.
So what is it that am I looking at when I sit in front of my computer? My monitor must be solid matter! Not necessarily so. Think of this: What you are getting right now is a series of sensory ‘images’ – a visual image of your monitor, a touch image (feel) of the chair you are sitting in, a sound image of the fan in your computer, smell image of the room you are in, and a taste image of what you ate last. If you think about it, these ‘images’ or sensory perceptions are all just thoughts and thoughts are ideas. So everything we think we see in the world is just ideas in our consciousness. It’s also important to remember that science now tells us that so-called ‘solid matter’ is really frozen energy – charges held together by forces.

There are different types of idealism. One is solipcism a very difficult but entertaining argument. This view claims that everything in the universe is the product of ‘my’ mind. This can lead to the idea that since everything is just ideas in my head, nothing truly exists but what my mind makes exist. I can’t prove that you have any existence because my perception of you is based on my senses – you are an idea in my mind or, possibly, a figment of my imagination. You don’t exist – I made you up. What this leads to is the idea that when I die, everything else must disappear since my mind is no longer there to perceive it. When I leave a room, that room and everything in it no longer exists since my mind is no longer perceiving the room.
Not all solipcists take it this far; some think that there are other minds in the world to perceive things although it is difficult to prove it. But when all the minds are gone, the universe is no more. This is a bit of a dead end in Philosophy – if only I exist, what’s the point? It was explored in the movie ‘The Trueman Show.’

The less extreme version of this is absolute idealism. It holds a similar view to solipcism in that everything is perceived by minds and would not exist if a mind is not perceiving it. But absolute idealists argue that there is a supreme mind, sometimes thought of as God, which is continually perceiving the universe, and that is why everything is here and stays there when I leave the room. It also allows the world to continue when I die since there still will be a mind to keep everything going.

Then there is subjective idealism. This is the most comfortable and least extreme form. This argues that everything is a product of minds, but takes it no farther. There may or may not be a great being. Plato was this sort of idealist, seeing fundamental ideas (Forms) as eternal and somehow outside the person, an ideal reality because for him, only ideas were real – matter decays.