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

My sentiments exactly. Let's close out this discussion.

Well, if you're not even going to try and make dialogue, fine by me...

From one of Arvan's papers on P2P Simulation Hypothesis:

As Melchert nicely summarizes Wittgenstein’s view:

[Wittgenstein] suggests that if you wrote a book called The World as I Found it, there is one thing that would not be mentioned in it: you. It would include all of the facts you found, including all the facts about your body. And it would include psychological facts about yourself as well: your character, personality, dispositions, and so on. But you – the subject, the one to whom all this appears, the one who finds all these facts – would not be found.

Or, as Wittengstein put it in his own words, “The subject does not belong to the world; rather, it is a limit of the world.”

Kant expressed a similar position– for example, “we cannot even say that this [the “I”/the self] is a concept, but only that it is a bare consciousness which accompanies all concepts.”

For Kant, each of us is ultimately a noumenal, unknowable “thing in itself.”36 The self is, “merely that unknown X to whom the world appears and by which it is structured into objects.”37 This is why it seems perfectly conceivable that someone else – some other subject of conscious experience – could wake up tomorrow in my bed with all of my personality traits, memories, beliefs, etc., and still not be me. I seem to be a simple, brute subject of experience, distinct from all particular psychological or physical facts. A perfect duplicate of me could fail to be me precisely because we can imagine “my consciousness”38 flickering off and replaced by a duplicate consciousness: some other subject having all of my physical and psychological properties. This is, at least, what many great minds (e.g. Kant, Wittgenstein, Butler, Reid, Chisholm, etc.) have thought.

This does seem to suggest that the Experiencer as Person is fundamentally distinct from Experience?

In which case the Experiencer / Experienced Dualism seems to be true in some sense? Admittedly this doesn't by necessity mean they are of distinct substances.

Perhaps, given the mystery of how exactly the causal ordering that provides Structure fits in, this is the best we can do with metaphysics? 

A sort of Impasse that falls somewhere on a "spectrum" between "hard" Idealism and "hard" Dualism?

[Laird]

This does seem to suggest that the Experiencer as Person is fundamentally distinct from Experience?

Yes, and it's one of the basic points I've tried to affirm in this thread. I'm pleased you've found philosophers who've made the point in their own words. (I made a rare exception and "liked" your post without having read the essay by Marcus Arvan).

A sort of Impasse that falls somewhere on a "spectrum" between "hard" Idealism and "hard" Dualism?

I just want to note that although we'd ruled out "hard" idealism, I'm not aware of us finding a good reason to rule out "hard" dualism too. Is there something I've forgotten or overlooked?

If so, then that leaves this middle ground "impasse", but I'm not quite sure what it is! Perhaps you can elaborate.

I just want to note that although we'd ruled out "hard" idealism, I'm not aware of us finding a good reason to rule out "hard" dualism too. Is there something I've forgotten or overlooked?

If so, then that leaves this middle ground "impasse", but I'm not quite sure what it is! Perhaps you can elaborate.

Hard Dualism would mean there are two distinct substances, but at the very least the "physical" is not a real substance that could be known or characterized since that posits something outside experience yet only known via experience.

Dualism also needs to provide some explanation for causal interaction, and it doesn't seem any model can make sense of this without ultimately concluding some unity of substances.

Where Dualism could work, IMO, is making the case for the Person as a distinct substance. But not sure there is a very clear way to define a Person without reference to experience any more than we could define whatever the "physical" is supposed to be. And of course the Idealist could just say Persons are by definition mental entities.

As for the middle ground, it would depend on how we want to see the place of Structure. Neutral Monism or Dual Aspect Monism seem like possibilities, but perhaps it is just best to recognize that metaphysics is Experience, Experiencer, and Structure with no clear path to resolve their exact relationship?

Admittedly an additional complication that comes to mind is whether we can say Reason and Thought are *just* Experience.

A different way to flip this is the sensory experience of the external world, in some way, has a parallel in thought. Frege once said discovering a new proof is like finding a new planet...but not sure what this would imply. That the Mental Realm is corporeal and where NDErs might go? But if I'm in that place wouldn't I still have private thoughts about that realm, which implies an infinite regress...

[Laird]

We've agreed that each experience is unique to its experiencer; that is, that if one person is having an experience, then it would be mistaken to say that somebody else is also having that experience.

Now you've agreed via quoting two philosophers that the self is distinct from its experiences.

At a minimum, then, the situation is one of a set of separate persons each having their own experiences. However, as noted in my last post, we've also agreed that idealism can be ruled out, so this minimum is insufficient.

I don't see any alternative, then, to dualism: that there is something between these persons and their experiences that (1) is not experience (cannot be, because it is between persons, not their direct experiences, which belong to them alone), and (2) harmonises their unique perceptions of "the external world".

Now, despite that to me it seems inevitable given that which you've already granted, you resist it with:

Hard Dualism would mean there are two distinct substances, but at the very least the "physical" is not a real substance that could be known or characterized since that posits something outside experience yet only known via experience.

And yet the experiences of others are also outside of (our own) experience, yet we know them somehow via (our own) experience, so this can't be a solid ground for resisting.

You go on to further resist it with:

Dualism also needs to provide some explanation for causal interaction, and it doesn't seem any model can make sense of this without ultimately concluding some unity of substances.

Well, you've already granted a dualism between the self and its experiences, and if you are intent on resisting via this "Different categories of being can't interact causally", then surely it applies to the interaction between the self and its experiences too? Mustn't there be some explanation for the causal interaction between a self and its experiences? A self wills causally and - presto - corresponding experiences eventuate. What is the explanation for this causal interaction? (No answer expected nor required, of course).

See, I don't think that this is a sensible objection. We know that selves are causally efficacious, and whether it's with respect to their own experiences (which you accept are a distinct category) or with respect to the "stuff" that lies beyond them seems beside the point to me.

As for the middle ground, it would depend on how we want to see the place of Structure. Neutral Monism or Dual Aspect Monism seem like possibilities, but perhaps it is just best to recognize that metaphysics is Experience, Experiencer, and Structure with no clear path to resolve their exact relationship?

What is it that is structured?

It is neither experience nor experiencer, so...?...

This is why I think dualism is inevitable. Call it "the physical", call it "matter", call it "energy", or just, like I've been doing in this thread, call it "stuff". The label doesn't matter as much as the recognition that positing its existence is inevitable: there must be something that is neither experiencer nor experience to mediate between experiencers (lest we accept a community of bare experiencers directly transferring and translating "the external world" somehow - telepathically? - between themselves, which you seem to agree is not a sensible idea).

Admittedly an additional complication that comes to mind is whether we can say Reason and Thought are *just* Experience.

Yes, and that would be an interesting conversation to have too. It'd be nice to resolve the dualism question first though.

At a minimum, then, the situation is one of a set of separate persons each having their own experiences. However, as noted in my last post, we've also agreed that idealism can be ruled out, so this minimum is insufficient.

I think only One True Subject Idealism can be ruled out, but so can Dualism that claims there is a "physical" stuff that is outside experience yet only know through experience.

I don't see any alternative, then, to dualism: that there is something between these persons and their experiences that (1) is not experience (cannot be, because it is between persons, not their direct experiences, which belong to them alone), and (2) harmonises their unique perceptions of "the external world".

This seems to [potentially] reject Dualism because whatever harmonizes perceptions would seem to share causal relations with both Persons and Experience?

If Persons are a substance, and Experiences are a substance, then this extra stuff that provides causal ordering (Structure) would need to be "glued" to both?

Well, you've already granted a dualism between the self and its experiences, and if you are intent on resisting via this "Different categories of being can't interact causally", then surely it applies to the interaction between the self and its experiences too? Mustn't there be some explanation for the causal interaction between a self and its experiences? A self wills causally and - presto - corresponding experiences eventuate. What is the explanation for this causal interaction? (No answer expected nor required, of course).

I don't have a definitive answer what the explanation is, though "gun-to-my-head" I'd pick Panentheism as my preferred contender even if the "theism" part here seems to (perhaps) assume too much.

Otherwise it's difficult to see how any Person - even God - can create the Real or provide causal grounding? The alternatives would need God to create Something from Nothing - an impossibility - and/or somehow be granted a fiat power to ground causation "just because"?

[Admittedly I fear there must be something potentially "brute fact" about Causation, at the risk of infinite regress....but I am wary of not trying to ground causation at all...]

See, I don't think that this is a sensible objection. We know that selves are causally efficacious, and whether it's with respect to their own experiences (which you accept are a distinct category) or with respect to the "stuff" that lies beyond them seems beside the point to me.

I think a distinct category is not, by necessity, the same as a distinct substance. Thoughts and Reason may not be *just* Experience, but even so they would still be classified as Mental?

What is it that is structured?

It is neither experience nor experiencer, so...?...

Well yes that's the question. What is the "stuff"?

This is why I think dualism is inevitable. Call it "the physical", call it "matter", call it "energy", or just, like I've been doing in this thread, call it "stuff". The label doesn't matter as much as the recognition that positing its existence is inevitable: there must be something that is neither experiencer nor experience to mediate between experiencers (lest we accept a community of bare experiencers directly transferring and translating "the external world" somehow - telepathically? - between themselves, which you seem to agree is not a sensible idea).

This seems like it would mean there are at least three substances, if we demarcate Persons & Experiences as distinct substances?

As for whether bare experiencers can translate the "external world"...I'm honestly not sure. Would that be Monadism of some sort, with God being the Aleph-Monad? IIRC Leibniz's metaphysics worked something like this.

Whiteheadian metaphysics suggests experiential transfer is a fundamental part of causality, though I am admittedly not sure if a Whiteheadian would say that is *all* there is. That also isn't a telepathy, though the way I read Eric Weiss's metaphysics was that higher Occasions do use telepathy to embody themselves.

If Aquinas is correct - perhaps with an update by Torley and/or Bonnette - then wouldn't God be the Person/Experiencer who provides causal ordering (Structure)?

All to say I am just not sure there is a clear answer here, or if there ever could be...

Yes, and that would be an interesting conversation to have too. It'd be nice to resolve the dualism question first though.

Admittedly it's unlikely we can resolve debates that have existed across millennia, I figure we're just keeping our minds sharp...but even in this little corner of the Internet I think this question - of whether Thoughts & Reason are *just* Experience - is very pertinent.

If Thought is more than just an Experience, and Reason - which requires both - is something over and above Thought & Experience...what does this mean for the supposed division of Reality into Persons (Experiencers) and Experience?

[Laird]

Well yes that's the question. What is the "stuff"?

It was largely a rhetorical question: whatever it is you posit that is structured is neither experiencer nor experience, therefore it's a different substance, therefore dualism.

QED.

I'm not sure on what basis you resist this conclusion. You write that:

so can Dualism that claims there is a "physical" stuff that is outside experience yet only know through experience [be ruled out --Laird].

Yet whatever we call it, that which you posit as structured must be outside experience given that it is neither experiencer nor experience.

Honestly, you don't seem to be consistent here in on the one hand rejecting a substance (whatever we name it) that on the other is entailed.

Then there's this:

This seems to [potentially] reject Dualism because whatever harmonizes perceptions would seem to share causal relations with both Persons and Experience?

Of course there are causal relations between substances. That doesn't refute dualism!

this extra stuff that provides causal ordering (Structure) would need to be "glued" to [Persons and Experience --Laird]?

It definitely has an ongoing causal relationship with persons (in both directions). Whether this is best described as "glue" I'm not so convinced.

I think a distinct category is not, by necessity, the same as a distinct substance.

Agreed, which is why I deliberately chose those words. Experience is not a substance; it is dependent on an experiencer. Substances are independent.

I think only One True Subject Idealism can be ruled out

...and...

As for whether bare experiencers can translate the "external world"...I'm honestly not sure.

So you don't, after all, rule out pluralistic idealism on the basis that it can't explain the external world, as I thought you had done?

Or do you think that there is some third type of idealism beyond monistic and pluralistic (with respect to instances of minds)?

I haven't read the pages to which you linked. I might do that later.

I'm still bracketing the question of thoughts and reason until later.

From one of Arvan's papers on P2P Simulation Hypothesis:

As Melchert nicely summarizes Wittgenstein’s view:

[Wittgenstein] suggests that if you wrote a book called The World as I Found it, there is one thing that would not be mentioned in it: you. It would include all of the facts you found, including all the facts about your body. And it would include psychological facts about yourself as well: your character, personality, dispositions, and so on. But you – the subject, the one to whom all this appears, the one who finds all these facts – would not be found.

Or, as Wittengstein put it in his own words, “The subject does not belong to the world; rather, it is a limit of the world.”

Kant expressed a similar position– for example, “we cannot even say that this [the “I”/the self] is a concept, but only that it is a bare consciousness which accompanies all concepts.”

For Kant, each of us is ultimately a noumenal, unknowable “thing in itself.”36 The self is, “merely that unknown X to whom the world appears and by which it is structured into objects.”37 This is why it seems perfectly conceivable that someone else – some other subject of conscious experience – could wake up tomorrow in my bed with all of my personality traits, memories, beliefs, etc., and still not be me. I seem to be a simple, brute subject of experience, distinct from all particular psychological or physical facts. A perfect duplicate of me could fail to be me precisely because we can imagine “my consciousness”38 flickering off and replaced by a duplicate consciousness: some other subject having all of my physical and psychological properties. This is, at least, what many great minds (e.g. Kant, Wittgenstein, Butler, Reid, Chisholm, etc.) have thought.

Fascinating food for thought! Cheers.

This does seem to suggest that the Experiencer as Person is fundamentally distinct from Experience?

On the surface, yes... but I believe that Kant is missing something here ~ the nature of the Subject, the Experiencer, and how each will be differently defined by the exact same set of Experiences. That is to say, despite identical Experiences, our irreducibly distinct personalities still mean we interpret the same set differently.

So, in essence, Experience still cannot be separated from the Experiencer proper ~ because even if we duplicated, say, me, that duplicated would not be me. In essence, our Experiences would not be identical because we perceive them differently. That is, we are defined differently by the same Experiences because we are different Subjects.

So, I both agree with Kant, but also disagree. It's a complex subject, to be certain.

In which case the Experiencer / Experienced Dualism seems to be true in some sense? Admittedly this doesn't by necessity mean they are of distinct substances.

In some sense, yes ~ if only because we... "artificially" (for want of a better descriptor...) create that distinction through sensory awareness. We the Experiencer are the ones who draw the lines between Self and Other.

Perhaps, given the mystery of how exactly the causal ordering that provides Structure fits in, this is the best we can do with metaphysics? 

I am uncertain... but at the moment I still find myself deferring to Taoism with its seeming structure of Emptiness -> Oneness -> Dualism -> Pluralism. I get to have my cake and eat it too ~ sort of, if we're counting derived substances as substances that cannot be reduced lest they no longer conceptually exist.

A sort of Impasse that falls somewhere on a "spectrum" between "hard" Idealism and "hard" Dualism?

A sort of... Duality within Monism / Non-Dualism, you might say?

Fascinating food for thought! Cheers.


On the surface, yes... but I believe that Kant is missing something here ~ the nature of the Subject, the Experiencer, and how each will be differently defined by the exact same set of Experiences. That is to say, despite identical Experiences, our irreducibly distinct personalities still mean we interpret the same set differently.

So, in essence, Experience still cannot be separated from the Experiencer proper ~ because even if we duplicated, say, me, that duplicated would not be me. In essence, our Experiences would not be identical because we perceive them differently. That is, we are defined differently by the same Experiences because we are different Subjects.

So, I both agree with Kant, but also disagree. It's a complex subject, to be certain.

Well I think this does get into tricky territory, but it seems to me that we could separate any additional interpretation from the immediate experience? While your red could be my blue, at the bare minimum there seems to be an immediate, simple, color experience.

In some sense, yes ~ if only because we... "artificially" (for want of a better descriptor...) create that distinction through sensory awareness. We the Experiencer are the ones who draw the lines between Self and Other.

Yeah, and telepathy could throw a huge wrench into the idea that experiences are private, though I think we could at least still say there's a difference in the sense of ownership of a thought? But maybe not...

Still, it does seem to me that I would not own your experiences, nor would you own mine. As such Persons seem distinct given their points of view?

I am uncertain... but at the moment I still find myself deferring to Taoism with its seeming structure of Emptiness -> Oneness -> Dualism -> Pluralism. I get to have my cake and eat it too ~ sort of, if we're counting derived substances as substances that cannot be reduced lest they no longer conceptually exist.

Apologies if I asked this before, but what is Emptiness? Is that Formlessness?

A sort of... Duality within Monism / Non-Dualism, you might say?

Perhaps, but Persons would still be distinct from each other as well as anything that is "Non-Persons"....of course for some metaphysics there are no Non-Persons. Goff's Pan-Agentialism arguably is like that, so is Whitehead's metaphysics if everything that isn't conscious is merely an aggregate of agents such as conscious particles...

It was largely a rhetorical question: whatever it is you posit that is structured is neither experiencer nor experience, therefore it's a different substance, therefore dualism.

Apologies, but I feel as if I am missing a step?

Or perhaps several steps?

Edit:

So epistemologically we can start with an Experiencer having an Experience. Experience could be subdivided into Experiencers, though perhaps we are then utilizing Intentionality to carve up the Experience?

We can also say an Experiencer is a Person, an Observer, an Agent or whatever term we wish to use. I am not sure these are equivalent but let's accept there's enough commonality for the moment to move on to the next step.

Seeing as the division of the Experience into varied Experiences, if not the fact one can have Experience at all, implies some kind of Structure we can say that there's some Order.

Changes in Experience then imply causal ordering, further supporting the inclusion of Structure.

Can we say more than this with any confidence? I honestly don't know...Thoughts and Reason fit in there somewhere I guess...