And there are significant problems with the world as a mental construct I wish you to address. Isn't it uselessly redundant? If the world is just a mental construct of the mind then doesn't that require the mind to exist?

 

A good point.

 

The cognizing mind and the cognized -created mental construct, are bound together.

They appear together, they disappear together.

 

The fact that each depends on the other to apparently be,.........does not lend either of them an existential reality.

 

 

 

 And in any case wouldn't you have to believe that you are the only actual person, and everybody else is just a figment of your imagination?

 

YES.

 

And it's not a matter of belief, but a matter of apperception.

Apperception, as much a conceptual term as any, ................connotes,.......... the perceiving without a "perceiver".

 

Apperception of what?

 

That, for any sentient cognizing body-mind complex, ..............its cognized world, made up of a multitude of cognized objects with which it then relates, either in love or in hate or in indifference, ......

 

....exists only for it and through it,...

 

.... AS A consequence of the specific architecture of its manifestation.

 

The space-time continuum and the cognized world in this space-time construct, appears as a consequence of the way the psycho-somatic apparatus is constructed as a manifestation within the same space-time construct.

 

 

Hence the apperception, that there is really no "other", .............just a created mental imagery in dynamic movement , where there is an apparent duality of the self and the "other".

 

 

An apperception which can equally happen, occur through any sentient body-mind complex, appropriately conditioned.

 

 

And akin to what Fundamental science is now seeing................that any point of the Universe, is the centre of the Universe.

 

That Universe, phenomenality, ..............apparently arises, .........."for" a point within phenomenality, ........from that very point.

 

An arising which is an equal happening,.......... for any point within the Universe.

 

Just like your night sleep-dream.

 

Your night sleep-dream, could have a drama spanning events say over  5 decades of time, of multiple events, causes, effects, relatings, successes, failures, achievements, understandings, etc etc, ....tremendous pathos, ethos,  (as a miniature microcosm of the Universe, Phenomenality itself).....

 

..........all emanating from you as a single point dreamer of that Dream, lying on a bed.

 

 

On the scale of phenomenality, (of which the Universe is a mere bubble).........

 

..............each of the nuances of phenomenality, ...............each and every manifest object, whether sentient or non-sentient,.......is a particular dream-sequence, ..............getting enacted out individually, uniquely.

 

And each and every nuance, each and every object, being a mere dream-sequence has no independent existential volition or reality...

 

.......AND whose Dreamer, is one and the same,.........

 

.......dreaming all the infinite "dream-sequences",.......simultaneously.

 

Any point of the Universe, is the centre of the Universe.

 

The mistake (again totally appropriate) is to believe, accept, assume that your identity is the dreamed-up psycho-somatic character labeled "A",.............

 

.... whereas what you really are, .......is the simultaneous dreaming of all the dream-sequences.

 

Not a Dreamer dreaming a dream, for that suggests the separation between the two,..............but the dreaming in the moment.

 

Now whether you call that dreaming,..... as Consciousness, Noumenon, Source, Void, Plenum-of-all-Potentialities, Awareness-not-aware-of-itself......... 

 

or Bozo the Clown, ..............makes no difference.  

 

The mistake is similar to the one you make every night, when you forget you are asleep in your bed, and "become" the dreamed-up "Atheist" of the dream, upto all the hooplas all within the dream-sequence.

 

The forgetting is so total that depending on the particular hoopla, you actually cry out, shake in anger, break into cold sweat, laugh in joy, have an erection and ejaculate,.....

 

......all while sound asleep.

 

The hoopla was so real, while you were sound asleep.

 

Same situation in this waking state, right now, while you are sitting at a PC reading this post.

 

You are completely convinced that this waking hoopla is absolutely real.

 

The mind cannot deny the reality of the dream-world it has created while it is dreaming .....

 

....and.......

 

... it cannot deny the reality of the waking-world, which it has created while waking.

 

The two created worlds are in no way different.