An excellent concise and accurate statement of the interactive dualism theory of mind

217 Replies, 6097 Views

(2025-01-25, 11:58 AM)Laird Wrote: Yes, and I've been bracketing all of that. There's of course also memory, volition, and the subconscious to add to bare persons and their phenomenal experiences, and probably a few other faculties as well.

Yeah Persons seem to be many things, all at once. [Yet this complexity, if it can be called that, doesn't seem reducible. One of the strong reasons, IMO, to accept Survival evidence is telling us the truth - no one has a good clue not only how a Person can be destroyed, but also no one has a good clue how Persons come into being.]

Quote:Huh, well, that's one way to answer the "in whose mind(s) is/are this vast amount of information stored" question: in each and every single darn one of our minds - including each and every component of reality, which is a mind too - and the whole kit and kaboodle, from one end of the universe to the other, and from start to finish.

It is very strange, though I'm not sure the proponent can object too much given many (most?) of us believe there is a vast amount of memory the soul has which is repressed while alive?

The question of anomalous knowledge was even something Plato believed played a role in mathematical knowledge.

Quote:I mean, what can one say to that? It's a bit like solipsism: you can't strictly disprove it by logical contradiction, but should we take much more seriously the guy who says, "You're not really talking to me: you're talking to your representation of me in your monad, which is a universe unto itself, manifest from your own perspective, created and harmonised by God with every other monad, including mine, in which I'm likewise talking to a mere representation of you", than the guy who says, "You're not really talking to me, because only you exist"?

I don't know. Marshall seems pretty intelligent, so I would hesitate to reject his view on the grounds it sounds weird. Idealism sounds absolutely crazy to some people, and a large chunk of academia would find the Interaction Problem to be fatal to Dualism?

Quote:That's one contentious aspect. Another is that it seems to imply a metaphysical system in which, essentially, a bunch of separate video tapes (monads) are set up to run, each completely isolated from all others, but containing in advance the whole "drama" of reality, and happening to have been recorded such that the drama each one "plays" is consistent with all of the others although from a different perspective.

From what I've read a Monadist is not by necessity a determinist. What's pre-established is the parallelism. It does seem, however, to need some kind of outside source for Causal Harmony. Otherwise what good reason, besides Luck, is there for any pre-established parallelism between Monads to hold?

Quote:It's only a slight step up from solipsism in that at least you know that others exist, even though you can never interact with them directly: all of their monads could be eliminated and for all intents and purposes you wouldn't know the difference, given that you only ever interact with representations of them in your own monad.

Yeah, without the One/God providing and the preserving Causal Harmony Monadism seems to fail to avoid a solipsism problem. God has to be there supporting the parallelism, but then God would seem to need to have causal access to all Moands.

So there has to be something in the nature of all Monads that is amenable/receptive to God's power, as well as something in God that allows It/His/Her power to actively affect Monads.

Quote:It also brings free will into serious question, implying a sort of predetermination.

I think without God this would probably be the only way it could work, but with God I think the parallelism would avoid that problem?

Quote:I read the chapter you referenced, and it didn't answer the other part of my question - how is all of this information translated into perspectival phenomenal experience? - but presumably some sort of answer could be given, so I wouldn't say that that's a fatal problem.

Apologies but what is "Information" in this context? What is "perspectival phenomenal experience"?

Quote:More problematic is how our minds could contain this unimaginably vast amount of information without us even being aware of its existence.

I don't think storage issues would make that much difference here, if they aren't a problem for past-life memory?

Marshall seems to accept the Survival evidence, so he likely sees a parallel here between Earth-embodie[d] Monads potentially forgetting billions of years of knowledge from past lives. Which aligns with Plato's own thoughts on the topic.

Quote:Also problematic is that, like monistic idealism, its accounting for the role of body and brain is sketchy. Paul seems to impute a causal efficacy to body and brain, and yet all they are are phenomenal experiences: is it really plausible that these phenomenal experiences limit and alter one's phenomenal experience in general? Along with causal efficacy there's an imputation that they have some sort of objective existence, but, again, on idealism all they are are experiences, not objects "out there". This sort of implicitly trades on dualistic concepts and sentiments while more explicitly denying them.

I don't see the problem here? There's always a functional Dualism between the Self-Soul and [corporeal] Body, I don't think any proponent accepting Survival evidence would dispute that.

Causal efficacy is always going to be an issue for all metaphysics, given the only causality we really know from the inside is our own volitional acts involving selecting from possibilities.

If The One aka "God" is the author and preserver of Casual Harmony, there has to be a way for It/Her/His' mental causation to have effect on whatever substance makes up reality.

Quote:I don't think monadism actually is P2P though. There's no actual communication between monads; they just internally represent one another.

A true P2P pluralistic idealism with genuine communication between minds - to synchronise their internal model of reality - is possible, but then my argument cuts in: having to do all of that communicating and synchronising and updating of internal models is far less parsimonious than just interfacing directly with an objective reality that updates itself.

That sounds more like a client-server model than a P2P model, with God's mind as server and our minds as clients. It's more parsimonious than the P2P model, but still less parsimonious than a mind-independent reality.

Yeah, you need the One to uphold the parallelism, otherwise the causal histories could only line up by coincidence. But the idea of patterns of causal relations holding across time is a problem that has to be addressed by all metaphysics, unless one is willing to accept the "Humean" view that causality is convenient fiction with nothing actually binding any observed causal relation....yet even accepting this for the external, third person consensus would leave the issue of our logical reasoning also be mere Luck...which would make all rational argumentation worthless.

Quote:I don't understand the premise behind the question. Why wouldn't it? Why would we expect causality to operate harmoniously only in subsets of substances?

Physicalists sometimes accept there are no actual Laws of Nature, just patterns we discover. Yet then without anything to bind the nature of the "physical" - which our current evidence tells us is stochastic anyway - there isn't any reason to expect consistency in causal relations either across time or in different locations.

But the problem is the same for all metaphysics, without something/someone holding Causal Harmony causal relations have no reason to be or stay Universal.

Quote:By this do you mean the genuine communication to which I referred above, where they share - presumably by some sort of subconscious telepathy - relevant information with each other so as to update their own internal models and maintain inter-monad consistency?

...or do you mean here part of one mind sort of literally "being part of" another mind too? That seems problematic for similar reasons as monistic idealism (that to which you refer as One True Self idealism).

I was thinking more tha[t] Monads would be akin to subtle bodies, where the bodies have some overlap. Not sure if Minds have to overlap in that scheme, but I think part of the issue is it isn't clear what Monads are in Marshall's metaphysics. Sometimes they seem to be the minimal physical particle, other times they seem to be extensionless....yet how can extensionless Monads figure into the claims of panpsychism he makes?

Can something extensionless provide a basis for extension? I accept something extensionless could, by way of some kind of bridge laws, affect that which is extended...though of course we need the One / God to continually preserve such laws....which suggests God has to be not just extended but Everywhere....

But Marshall is saying the extensionless Monads can serve as atoms, akin to Whiteheadian Occasions of "lower grade" being atoms...yet AFAICTell Whiteheadian Occasions *are* extended?

Quote:Is that really the yardstick though? Whether or not we can convince the guy entertaining an implausible idea that it's wacky? When has that ever worked out?

It's less "I can't argue with a fanatic" and more "I don't know if I can genuinely refute this metaphysics".

The former is the Physicalist who will just refuse to accept their metaphysics doesn't work due to the Something (Mind) from Nothing (Matter w/ no mental character) problem.

Atheistic Monadism seems to go off the rails because no One is there to hold Causal Harmony in place. Marshall, because he believes in a God that holds Causal Harmony in place, doesn't have that problem.
'Historically, we may regard materialism as a system of dogma set up to combat orthodox dogma...Accordingly we find that, as ancient orthodoxies disintegrate, materialism more and more gives way to scepticism.'

- Bertrand Russell


(This post was last modified: 2025-01-26, 09:11 AM by Sciborg_S_Patel. Edited 3 times in total.)
[-] The following 1 user Likes Sciborg_S_Patel's post:
  • Laird

Messages In This Thread
RE: An excellent concise and accurate statement of the interactive dualism theory of mind - by Sciborg_S_Patel - 2025-01-25, 06:40 PM

  • View a Printable Version
Forum Jump:


Users browsing this thread: 1 Guest(s)