Editing Solipsism (section)

===Idealism and materialism===
One of the most fundamental debates in philosophy concerns the "true" nature of the world—whether it is some ethereal plane of ideas or a reality of atomic particles and energy. [[Materialism]]<ref name="Catholic Encyclopedia">{{CathEncy|wstitle=Materialism}}</ref> posits a real "world out there", as well as in and through us, that can be sensed—seen, heard, tasted, touched and felt, sometimes with prosthetic technologies corresponding to human sensing organs. (Materialists do not claim that human senses or even their prosthetics can, even when collected, sense the totality of the universe; simply that they collectively cannot sense what cannot in any way be known to us.) Materialists do not find this a useful way of thinking about the [[ontology]] and [[ontogeny]] of ideas, but we might say that from a materialist perspective pushed to a logical extreme communicable to an idealist, ideas are ultimately reducible to a physically communicated, organically, socially and environmentally embedded 'brain state'. While reflexive existence is not considered by materialists to be experienced on the atomic level, the individual's physical and mental experiences are ultimately reducible to the unique tripartite combination of environmentally determined, genetically determined, and randomly determined interactions of firing [[neurons]] and atomic collisions.

For materialists, ideas have no primary reality as essences separate from our physical existence. From a materialist perspective, ideas are social (rather than purely biological), and formed and transmitted and modified through the interactions between social organisms and their social and physical environments. This materialist perspective informs scientific methodology, insofar as that [[methodology]] assumes that humans have no access to [[omniscience]] and that therefore human knowledge is an ongoing, collective enterprise that is best produced via [[scientific]] and [[logical]] conventions adjusted specifically for material human capacities and limitations.{{citation needed|date=May 2014}}

Modern [[Idealism|idealists]] believe that the mind and its thoughts are the only true things that exist. This is the reverse of what is sometimes called "[[classical idealism]]" or, somewhat confusingly, "[[Platonic idealism]]" due to the influence of Plato's [[theory of forms]] (εἶδος ''eidos'' or ἰδέα ''idea''), which were not products of our thinking.<ref>{{CathEncy|wstitle=Idealism}}</ref> The material world is [[ephemeral]], but a perfect triangle or "beauty" is eternal. Religious thinking tends to be some form of idealism, as God usually becomes the highest ideal (such as [[neoplatonism]]).<ref name="Catholic Encyclopedia"/><ref>{{cite web|url = http://www.sullivan-county.com/id3/neoplatonism.htm|title = Notes on Neoplatonism and the relation to Christianity and Gnosticism|first = Lewis|last = Loflin}}</ref><ref>{{cite encyclopedia|url = http://www.iep.utm.edu/g/germidea.htm|encyclopedia = [[Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy]]|title = German Idealism|date = 16 April 2001}}</ref> On this scale, solipsism can be classed as idealism. Thoughts and concepts are all that exist, and furthermore, only the solipsist's own thoughts and consciousness exist. The so-called "reality" is nothing more than an idea that the solipsist has (perhaps unconsciously) created.