Disputes about mind and world etc. can be avoided if we adopt the following stance:
[1] Common realism, in which there is a world of material objects that we partially perceive through our senses, is fine as a daily utilitarian view of being. It has widespread support and is perfectly applicable in most daily situations, including most scientific investigations. However, it is insufficient where one is seeking a more refined or high-resolution view of reality, in the same way low-resolution images are fine for day-to-day snapshots but inadequate for close scrutiny.
[2] A more subtle and finely grained view recognises that common realism is insufficient to account for the ubiquity of mind in forming our view of reality. The fact that everything we know, and can ever know, is through the mind — idealism in one form or other — is acknowledged, and that external objects, while they may well exist and give cause for sensation, cannot be known ‘in themselves’. In other words, we know the appearance, but not the essence of the world. The common realist view [1] is nested within this idealist view [2].
[3] I would propose a further level of resolution, within which idealism [2] is nested: That the mind is ubiquitous, and identical with reality. There neither is or is not anything outside the mind; prior to or beyond minds things neither do or do not exist. What is real is mind, and what is mind is real. This view approaches the limits of our capacity for conception.
