A tabulation of mind-body possibilities

[Laird]

I guess for me it isn't clear why the basic nature [of physical entities --Laird] doesn't change.

Is it any clearer why it would change? Both seem possible, so why would we rule either one out?

Additionally, for something to happen that was truly random seems to involve a Something from Nothing issue, as noted by Thomas Nail ->

Is it noted though?

It seems that he raises two possibilities, only one of which is "a radical randomness, or what Quentin Meillassoux calls “hyperchaos,” which is complete ex nihilo creation from nothing".

The other is "the constrained definition [sic] randomness where there is a closed domain of objects and matter moves randomly within that." His reason for dismissing this is that "Lucretius is explicit that nature is not a finite closed system", but (1) why should we accept Lucretius's view here, (2) why should we accept in the first place that this is the only other possibility for physical randomness; why couldn't an open physical system with randomness exist, and, (3) is his final affirmation that "Something always comes from something relationally but creatively and non-deterministically" anyway incompatible with the scenario I said I don't have a problem with, that of "limited indeterminism: that there is a small domain (certain quantum-mechanical behaviour) in which there is a range of options from which one occurs at random, without the need for a mind to choose which one"; in other words with respect to #3, is this just semantics over what the word "random" means in this context, with no real conceptual difference between our statements (his and mine)?

Now, to me, the problem for determinism is how to distinguish it from Meillassoux's Hyper Chaos, as he has noted that Hyper Chaos could lead to a seemingly deterministic universe for all time. It just wouldn't be a matter of necessity but rather luck, though not a measurable kind as true randomness doesn't hold to measurable probability distributions like QM does.

Attempts to explain the necessity of causation, as we've longed discussed and agreed upon, fall flat.

So if determinism is really a special case of randomness, and randomness at least feels illogical, what is left?

I don't think that a feeling is enough here though. It's a good clue to where to direct thinking, but it's not an end point, and the problem with that feeling in the context of Meillassoux's essay is that he demonstrates that, despite Popper's and Kant's attempts to prove as much, there's nothing illogical - in the sense of contradictory - with random worlds that don't strictly obey laws.

Nail thinks we have to ascribe the indeterminism that is not random as a brute fact of matter, but I think the alternative is to look at the one good case (IMO anyway) of possibility selection as seen from the inside. Namely our own mental causation.

Philosophers ranging from Whitehead to Bertrand Russell to Aquinas have also remarked, in different ways, on how to [gain] understanding causation one has to look to mental causation.

Frederico Faggin seems to be saying something similar recently, that you start with the free willed conscious agent and then attempt to grasp QM and its relation to the classical world.

Sorry to belabor all this, but I think this question of whether all causation is mental causation is one of the big reasons I think Dualism - which supposes a non-mental physical stuff - is flawed.

I'm low on stamina right now so I haven't watched the Frederico video prior to drafting this response, but to respond more generally to the above: sure, I see no reason to exclude the possibility that all causation is mental, but on the other hand, I see no reason to endorse it either.

I don't mind the belabouring, and I don't mind if you don't respond to anything else in the post of mine to which you were responding, except that I remain interested in this part of the exchange:

Sci: But I think that outside of the One True Subject problem - which has shown up in certain varieties of panpsychism as well - that Idealism could still be possible.

Laird: Can you sketch out the possibilities? Are they any different than the P2P and client-server network-of-mind scenarios that I sketched out myself?

This isn't related to the Interaction Problem which I agree isn't that strong of an argument and certainly not fatal to Dualism.

And of course like everyone sane I concede the functional dualism that exists between the conscious agent and the environment that exists around said agent.

Both good and agreeable to me.

I'm low on stamina right now so I haven't watched the Frederico video prior to drafting this response, but to respond more generally to the above: sure, I see no reason to exclude the possibility that all causation is mental, but on the other hand, I see no reason to endorse it either.

Looking back on it I don't know if the Frederic Faggin video is that relevant. I'd need to read his book, I think, to see his exact position on causation as the video left me with questions.

Will respond to the other stuff, but regarding this question:

Sci: But I think that outside of the One True Subject problem - which has shown up in certain varieties of panpsychism as well - that Idealism could still be possible.

Laird: Can you sketch out the possibilities? Are they any different than the P2P and client-server network-of-mind scenarios that I sketched out myself?

I can't claim I've worried about the issue too much, since I'm not an Idealist, but I guess I don't see a problem with everything being consciousness, whether that's a shared dream between all conscious agents or all of us being alters within the dreamscape of the One.

I looked into the question of alters meeting each other in dreamscapes, and it seems that it has happened.  And we also know there have been cases of dream telepathy, which to me further suggests conscious agents can exist in a shared dreamscape.

Seeing that conscious agents can share dreamscapes makes me think Idealism is, at the very least, not inherently incoherent. (Absolute Idealism, or whatever we call an Idealism that has only One True Subject against our supposed illusory existences...that I think we can say is incoherent.)

OTOH, regarding this idea of substances being granted the ability to be genuinely random (or deterministic, which IMO is just a special kind of randomness)...Still not convinced but will try to articulate why a bit later...

[Laird]

Will respond to the other stuff

Do you still plan to do that, Sci? I ask not to pressure or place expectations on you, but because I've been deferring a response until you did that, and if you no longer intend to, then I won't defer that response any longer.

Do you still plan to do that, Sci? I ask not to pressure or place expectations on you, but because I've been deferring a response until you did that, and if you no longer intend to, then I won't defer that response any longer.

It's on my list, but feel free to just respond!

[Laird]

It's on my list, but feel free to just respond!

It's OK: in that case, I'll wait. There's no rush for either of us.

[Laird]

I'm returning to this thread almost two years later in the context of this comment I've recently made in another thread of @Sci's:

I noticed a conflation that I've become more and more aware of recently, and that is using "consciousness" to refer both to "phenomenal experience" as well as to "the experiencing (conscious) mind and its mental processes".

This is of concern to me because this conflation makes it easier to elide the existence of the self altogether and reduce it to a "sense of". This is another conflation of sorts, between the self proper and our self-concept.

Unfortunately, I had some time back fallen victim to this conflation myself, as evidenced in this thread, from its very first post and the attachments to that post. The context in which that conflation developed in me is probably my long consideration of and engagement with Analytic Idealism, but the responsibility is ultimately mine.

The tabulation I started this thread with, then, needs to be rethought. Too often, it does conflate mind/self/experiencer with experience, and thereby doesn't quite accurately capture the ontologies (positions on the mind-body problem) that it represents itself as capturing.

I'll add a little note to that opening post to this effect.