I agree with you but I’m sure other atheists will take you to task for making subjective experience our starting point! I selected “the universe” because the nature of reality is disputed (and I specified assumptions on which atheism is **usually **based).
Our experience is prone to subjective bias and error because our mind is a single mind. But consciousness itself implies an extramental (objective) reality. So I cannot avoid the objective nature of reality, or deny it from the first, even if I was so inclined. Humans are physiologically wired for this, which makes it a “hardware based assumption” for us. As I’ve said before here, sticking one’s hand in an open flame quickly demonstrate this. We begin, as conscious beings, with the overriding understanding that the our sense data comes from an extra-mental source – an objective reality distinct from our consciousness.
I don’t think we need to postulate physical reality to conclude that other minds exist.
‘Physical’ is just a name for the conceptual framework that gives meaning to ‘exist’. It’s a tautology; that which we can we can give meaning to the word ‘exists’ for implies a context for existence. As an assumption, we don’t need to use the word ‘physical’, but it’s a nice shorthand for ‘that which bears distinctions of existence, attributes and behavior, based on our sense-data’. And if we do suppose other minds exist, that statement is only meaningful insofar as we can conceptually ground the word ‘exist’.
Our perceptions could be of the activity of other minds without having to use a physical medium, i.e. telepathic communication.
It’s tautological. If telepathy were borne out experientially, empirically, we’d just make that part of ‘physical’, because it would qualify just like speaking and hearing words. “Physical” is just the term we apply to interactions and senses that bear objective description.
But your starting point is non-physical reality!
“Physical” is just a label pointing to ‘amenable to perception, qualification, qualification and/or interaction on an objective basis’. The extramental (objective) distinction is hard wired – an infant that touches a hot stove involuntarily pulls her hand back, as she is cognitive wired to treat the objects of perception as extramental. This, from the very first, is an unavoidable affirmation of physical reality. She cannot do otherwise, any more than you or I can.
You seem to be left with no physical assumptions at all! Perhaps you should be an idealist rather than an atheist. I suppose idealism is compatible with atheism but it is an unusual combination.
As above, those assumptions are
unavoidably physical. Our physiology prevents us from any other starting point - or conclusion, as it happens. Any one who doubts the reality of reality, the physical nature of the objects of our perception, is invited to demonstrate their confusion by holding their hand over an open flame. The preposterous claims are usually proven so in just a second or two of physical flame assert its reality to your physical brain stem.
If you assume reality is intelligible to some degree you also assume there are intelligent beings. I specify more than one because the atheist would hardly be communicating his view to himself!
Yes, but that is not an assumption, but a conclusion. The presences of other (intelligent) minds proceeds from the assumption of a (partially) intelligible reality. Given our commitment to the intelligibility of reality, on of the assessments we make from that, incorporating our experiences, is that other minds do exist, and that we can communicate on some level with some of them.
I’m focusing on the key element of your original post here, and making distinctions between assumptions and conclusions, which often get confused and conflated. Indeed, this is a major contributing factor to many errors in belief; assumptions are often just thought to be conclusions you aren’t obligated to justify for some arbitrary reason, rather than propositions that are accepted by necessity, and which cannot be avoided. “God exists” being one of the more spectacular cases (and yes, I know that many reach this as a conclusion they feel can be supported, but for many, it’s just a naked, gratuitous assumption).
-TS
