Prof. Hiršs, thank you for your professional and excellent revelation. It is truly a pleasure to read your thoughtful comments.

I agree with you and the personalists that the only reality directly given to us is consciousness, and that the concept of "matter" is a metaphysical construct.

Though the esteemed Tartu School maintains that the contents of consciousness come from outside the mind, I humbly seek some clarification on this matter.

So I asked an AI about the possibility of testing the existence of matter. It responded that we can never verificationally confirm the existence of mind-independent matter itself, because all verification remains within the circle of experience.

If experience—such as appearance—is merely the mind's self-limitation, then its imperfection and suffering are not imposed from outside, but rather reveal the mind's own irrationality, blindness, or folly. A mind that could limit itself to bliss yet chooses misery is not wise; it is unintelligent.

The AI then suggested that suffering is necessary for the mind to become conscious of itself.

However, if the mind's self-limitation is meant to produce a conscious self, it would only require distinction, order, and boundary—not suffering, randomness, or cruelty. For example, when I wish to fly but cannot, this alone informs me of a limit. Such recognition of boundary does not require pain or suffering. A world that supports agency, clarity, and joy is fully capable of giving rise to a self. To choose imperfection, helplessness, and misery when goodness is possible is not necessity; it is folly.

Thus, I believe this establishes that sensations arise, in some sense, from outside affection upon the mind. Is there something wrong with this reasoning? I agree with your suggestion that the Tartu School may  assume matter is ontologically prior to mind. It seems to me that mind is more fundamental, given that free will enables us to govern matter.

This is an excellent and illuminating idea concerning the function of AI. I would like to draw a comparison between Professor Westerbeek's proposal and a situation in which an individual is controlled by her parents or some other authority: If parents constantly dictate their child's choices throughout her upbringing, her individual autonomy may be severely compromised. However, from the parents' perspective, the child often proves difficult to control—she may choose certain activities or hobbies that her parents disapprove of. Yet parental intervention does not necessarily prevent the child from becoming a responsible person. As some researchers have found, different individuals develop into distinct persons even when raised in identical environments. 

Sorry for the mistake — it should be Hiršs (2024) rather than Andris (2024). That was careless of me.

I wish to view the debate between personalism and physicalism as an inquiry into the fundamental truth of the world: is everything that exists fundamentally physical? Physicalists tend to take for granted that the mind is grounded in the brain, because the mind disappears when the brain is destroyed. This is a strong intuition. However, personalists point out that consciousness cannot be divided. When part of the brain is removed, the remaining subject does not experience their consciousness as having “lost a piece.” It seems that consciousness is an all-or-nothing phenomenon — either present (1) or absent (0). Some physicalists identify themselves as naturalists and regard personalism as opposed to naturalism. However, most ethicists ground personhood-related features such as the moral ought in fundamental non-physical yet natural entities. After all, explaining one thing by another that itself requires explanation leads to an infinite regress. As Andris (2024) notes, personalists and idealists are reluctant or have difficulties to provide positive descriptions of personhood or the personal dimension of reality. Are my understandings correct?