And there is also Pluralistic Idealism
Pluralistic idealism such as that of Gottfried Leibniz[44] takes the view that there are many individual minds that together underlie the existence of the observed world and make possible the existence of the physical universe
fleetmouse responded
Pluralistic Idealism makes sense for how I understood it.That sounds like relativism or subjectivism to me...
But I'm not so sure I would say that individuals minds make possible the existence of the physical world. Although, I would be interested in that. I would tend to believe we are in God's mind and the individual minds, being made in God's image, may also interact and create (or worse, from being fallen, or from ignorance). Sort of like a shared dream, in the dream God is dreaming us up in, as well.
Fleetmouse said
OK, let's say that everything is a thought in God's mind - we STILL have to account for why humans are conscious and rocks and trees are not, and it must be an account in terms of structure and function rather than substance - because those rocks and trees are also thoughts in God's mind, and so are made of the same "stuff" ultimately as we are.
(I've bolded and underlined that passage because it's the main idea I'd like to see followed up on in my flurry of posts today)
(will have to read up on objective and pluralistic idealism, thanks for the pointers!)
I have no idea if they are conscious or not. I have had an experience where everything looked and felt like it was alive. But that is also subjective just as your perceptions of the universe is. I start from knowing that I am here, aware and experiencing the world. That would be my personal base of knowledge. It seems that would be the case for any human. To define the base of reality as physical, and non-mental, you would be using your subjectivity to do so. Not all humans, through out all history, thought the world was non-mental or not "alive".
And I have already stated there are some who have the idea that the brain acts as a two way transmitter to the mind. The brain being the intermediary of body and mind.
In a previous post, I have touched on a similar idea, poetically, about the brain being knotted energy acting as a parameter, or filter, for our minds. And God being the knot pattern-er. In a non-mechanistic theory of the universe, such as a 'dream', in a way. I could understand it in my mind better than in a well described theory.