Defining The External World

I have explained what the external world is and is not in at least one previous post, but, since I was thinking about this issue again today, I want to be clear that the external world is not everything outside of my mind.  This post is just for good measure for the sake of newcomers to my blog!

The external world is the world of matter outside of my consciousness, and depending on the specific context it could refer to either all matter, including my body, or all matter beyond my body.  My consciousness is what it is external to, hence the descriptive phrase used to refer to it.  The world of matter, though, is certainly not the totality of everything that exists beyond my mind.  There is at least one thing that exists outside of my mind that is immaterial and thus by definition not a part of the external world, and there is strong evidence for others.

Logic is immaterial, and thus it is not a part of the external world despite governing the entirety of it [1].  Since logic cannot not exist, I do not even need to demonstrate that any other immaterial thing exists in order to show that the material world does not encompass everything outside of my mind, especially since logic would exist even if neither the external world nor my consciousness (or any other minds) existed at all.

Although I cannot prove that other minds exist, and thus I cannot know if they do, what I can prove is that other minds, even if they animate physical bodies as my own conscious mind does, are immaterial, thus also not being a part of the external world.  If there are any other minds/consciousnesses besides my own, then they, too, are not part of the material world because their metaphysical natures prevent this from being true.  Then, of course, there is the fact that on the Christian worldview it is even more troubling to call the external world everything that exists outside of my mind, because, in addition to logic and any other existing minds (including Yahweh's), things like sin and moral obligations are also immaterial and not part of the material world.

As rationalists can see, it is very misleading and to call the external world "everything" outside of one's mind.  To believe such a thing is to believe an impossibility.  While some might be tempted to misuse language with reference to the concept of the external world, it remains utterly invalid to say that the external world is comprised of everything whatsoever that exists outside of my consciousness.

[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/10/the-immateriality-of-logic.html