  The tremendous advances of research into artificial intelligence as well as
neuroscience made over the last two to three decades have given further support
to a renewed interest into philosophical discussions of the mind-body problem.
Especially the last decade has seen a revival of panpsychist and idealist
considerations, often focused on solving philosophical puzzles like the
so-called hard problem of consciousness. While a number of respectable
philosophers advocate some sort of panpsychistic solution to the mind-body
problem now, fewer advocate that idealism can contribute substantially to the
debate. Interest in idealism has nevertheless risen again, as can be seen also
from recent overview articles and collections of works. The working hypothesis
here is that a properly formulated idealism can not only provide an alternative
view of the mind/matter gap, but that this new view will also shed light on
open questions in our common scientific, i.e. materialist, world view. To
investigate this possibility, idealism first of all needs a model for the
integration of modern science which allows for a mathematically consistent
reinterpretation of the physical world as a limiting case of a both material
and non-material world, which would make the outcome of idealistic
considerations accessible to scientific investigation. To develop such a model
I will first try to explain what I mean when I speak of a 'scientifically
tenable' idealism, including a formulation of the emanation problem which for
idealism replaces the interaction problem, then give a very brief summary of
the available elements of such a theory in the philosophical literature, before
sketching out some 'design questions' which have to be answered upon the
construction of such models, and finally put forward a first model for a
scientifically tenable objective idealism.
