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

Well Kastrup doesn't seem to consider the question of Occam's razor. Without OR science would drift about aimlessly. I mean you could postulate particles that only interact via gravity or maybe not at all, science absolutely depends on OR. Kastrup also doesn't seem to consider that the consciousness that generates physical interactions presumably doesn't have free will, but does it make sense to talk about consciousness with no free will running the physical world?

David

Rightly or wrongly, Occam's Razor is part of what makes him an Idealist.

[Laird]

In summary... Interactive Dualism simply fails as a theory of mind.

And yet your own theory is simply interactive dualism, just with an origin story. At the same time though, you conflate what amounts to an origin story with neutral monism, in which mind and matter not just originate in a primal substance but reduce to that substance. This makes for a confused jumble of ideas.

Here are some of the major problems with your origin story (including as conflated with neutral monism):

1. How two radically different substances - the "stuff"-like substance of matter (including physical matter, astral "matter", and spirit "matter", etc), and the "thing"-like substances of minds (aka persons aka souls aka consciousnesses) - can arise from a primary substance which is neither (and on a supposed neutral monism, how they could - again, as radically different types of substance - reduce to that primary substance).
   
2. How an infinite pure potential could anyway be considered to be a "substance" in any relevant sense, let alone a primary "neutral" substance to which two distinct substances can be reduced.
   
3. How anything could be actualised out of pure potential anyhow.
   

I put all of this to you in my response, and your own response hasn't addressed any of it, hence my reiterating it here.

It's not even quite the interaction problem at this point, for me... first, Interactive Dualism needs to resolve the question of how matter can be its own base substance, how mind-as-we-know-it can be its own base substance

How are these any more problematic than the numbered problems I've put to you regarding your own origin story above?

why there is any need for "God" to be a person that has any need, limitation or requirement to create entirely separate and distinct substances out of apparently nothing

God as a person might not be the answer, but persons seem to be irreducible, so a fundamental Person seems to be a sensible postulate.

but then arbitrarily allow to interact through some entirely unexplained... glue, mechanism or something else.

I don't see why causal interaction between minds and matter is particularly more problematic than the causal interaction within minds and matter that we already take for granted.

Dualism (and Parallelism) can exist very nicely with a Monism ~ God as the prime substance, Brahman, Tao, Ain Soph, pick your poison.

No, not when mind and matter are radically different types of substance, and you haven't explained in any way how they could be reduced down to a third "neutral" substance; in fact, you haven't even proposed a third substance, only an infinity of pure potential out of which these two substances emerge.

I struggle to understand the resistance

The resistance is due to the problems I've pointed out with your theory, which you've ignored. Again, your theory doesn't even seem to be a neutral monism: you seem to have simply misappropriated that term.

[Laird]

if one wants to speak of Experiencers and Experienced as a kind of Dualism [...]

I think that this is a useful distinction to make.

Monism can then be framed as: experiencer and experienced are the same substance.

Dualism can then be framed as: experiencer and experienced are mostly different substances, except when one experiencer is experienced by another.

Given that experiencers are irreducible whereas - noted exception aside - that which is experienced can be reduced (to sub-atomic particles, etc), dualism is prima facie the more plausible option. That's aside from all of the many other arguments for dualism and against monism.

I think that this is a useful distinction to make.

Monism can then be framed as: experiencer and experienced are the same substance.

Dualism can then be framed as: experiencer and experienced are mostly different substances, except when one experiencer is experienced by another.

Given that experiencers are irreducible whereas - noted exception aside - that which is experienced can be reduced (to sub-atomic particles, etc), dualism is prima facie the more plausible option. That's aside from all of the many other arguments for dualism and against monism.

I don't understand how experiencers are mostly different save when experienced?

Also it isn't clear there are sub-atomic particles, these may simply be field effects/excitations of some substance.

I do agree though that Experiencers are irreducible to any kind of "stuff" since arrangements of matter/subtle matter/ectoplasm/etc will only ever be correlates to mental activity. Yet "stuff" itself seems to only ever be known as "stuff" due to consensus experiences.

I guess it isn't clear to me why Experiencers have to be distinct from the "stuff" that is Experienced.

[Laird]

I don't understand how experiencers are mostly different save when experienced?

Oh, that presupposed the duality of irreducible experiencers versus the rest of that which is experienced, which is - at face value - reducible.

I guess it could be argued that we never experience one another directly anyway, only as mediated via the reducible ("stuff"), but telepathy and other psi seems to be a counter to that.

Also it isn't clear there are sub-atomic particles, these may simply be field effects/excitations of some substance.

In that case, we can replace "reducible" with "differentiated". There remains a duality here anyway in that persons themselves are not differentiated, only their experiences (in a sense) are.

I do agree though that Experiencers are irreducible to any kind of "stuff" since arrangements of matter/subtle matter/ectoplasm/etc will only ever be correlates to mental activity. Yet "stuff" itself seems to only ever be known as "stuff" due to consensus experiences.

I guess it isn't clear to me why Experiencers have to be distinct from the "stuff" that is Experienced.

If they weren't, then experiencers would be identical with experience in some sense (because in this context there are only experiencers, experience, and the experienced, and if the third - the experienced - is not mind-independent "stuff", then it must be identical with the second - experience), but given the distinction between experiencers and their experiences, then a distinction between experiencers and that which is experienced follows.

Again, this is all at a basic, prima facie level, and there are more rigorous arguments.

And yet your own theory is simply interactive dualism, just with an origin story. At the same time though, you conflate what amounts to an origin story with neutral monism, in which mind and matter not just originate in a primal substance but reduce to that substance. This makes for a confused jumble of ideas.

I would have hoped that you wouldn't misrepresent my theory... but then, you seem almost blinded by a lens of Dualism. You look at the world with a very logical sense, whereas I've been seeking through an intuitive one. There is no... "origin story" in my theory, so much as seeking a logical end conclusion, starting from this reality that I'm most familiar with, working my way bottom-up, and then top-down.

I have stated that I perfectly content with an observed Interactive Dualism ~ but that an Interactive Dualism with two ultimate substances simply makes no logical sense, as design by fiat is just waving a magic wand, and saying God-as-person can do whatever because... the method of interaction left entirely void. It is a very jarring notion that conflicts with my current experiences of reality, of spirits, of the imaginal, of Shamanism.

So, how to square that circle? Logic versus intuition... theory versus inexplicable experience.

Here are some of the major problems with your origin story (including as conflated with neutral monism):

1. How two radically different substances - the "stuff"-like substance of matter (including physical matter, astral "matter", and spirit "matter", etc), and the "thing"-like substances of minds (aka persons aka souls aka consciousnesses) - can arise from a primary substance which is neither (and on a supposed neutral monism, how they could - again, as radically different types of substance - reduce to that primary substance).
   
2. How an infinite pure potential could anyway be considered to be a "substance" in any relevant sense, let alone a primary "neutral" substance to which two distinct substances can be reduced.
   
3. How anything could be actualised out of pure potential anyhow.
   

I put all of this to you in my response, and your own response hasn't addressed any of it, hence my reiterating it here.

Too much in terms of responses had passed, and I felt overwhelmed trying to contemplate the whole, so I just put down my current thoughts in boiled-down form.

Neutral Monism doesn't "conflate" anything ~ it seeks to explain how and why mind and matter can interact so seamlessly by offering a common medium, a common substance, a common language, as it were, if "energy" and "vibration" are a common language as it were.

Your unsubstantiated presumption is in the... demanding insistence that mind and matter must, by definition, be radically distinct. Again, you are allowing pure logic to get in the way of getting to the meat of the matter. Matter isn't really a substance of its own ~ it is entirely phenomenal, and doesn't exist independently outside of that perceptual state. Mind-as-we-know-it isn't a substance of its own, either ~ compared to soul proper, it is crushingly limited in scope and potential.

In Neutral Monism, the neutral substance has the potential qualities of both mind and matter, allowing both to be derived. So it allows for not only Dualism, but also Parallelism, with the neutral substance as the interactive medium, the fabric.

This is what I mean by "substance": https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/substance/

There exist two rather different ways of characterising the philosophical concept of substance. The first is the more generic. The philosophical term “substance” comes from an early Latin translation of the Greek ousia. Ousia is a noun derived from the verb “einai” (to be) and is naturally translated “being”. According to the generic sense, substances are those things that best merit the title “beings”. This is usually interpreted to mean those things that are the foundational or fundamental entities of a given philosophical system. Thus, for an atomist, atoms are the substances, for they are the basic things from which everything is constructed. In David Hume’s system, impressions and ideas are the substances, for the same reason. In a slightly different way, Forms are Plato’s substances, for everything derives its existence from Forms.

As for how existence is actualized out of infinite pure potential... well, it's no less mysterious than how God-as-person can just wave their hands and make two base substances, mind and matter, pop out of nowhere, separate from God-as-person, and interact in a way that has never been logically or intuitively explained. Does God act as the messenger? How is the "simpler" than just having a common medium by which two derivative existences are able to interact by simply having similar natures?

How are these any more problematic than the numbered problems I've put to you regarding your own origin story above?

There is a significant difference... matter as known ~ even if you want to define it as being quantum stuff ~ simply has no purpose as a base substance, logically or intuitively. It doesn't exist at the higher level of reality that my loong spirit inhabits ~ it's just... vibration-energy-form-stuff up there. And if that was weird, I have a loong spirit that complains and is annoyed at how ridiculously complicated biology is, and how the energies can be a real nightmare to figure out with how fine-grained they can get in purpose and connection to other energies in my field, aura... whatever it is.

So there are far more complexities at play than Interactive Dualism can answer. It's why Idealism has ceased to be interesting, because it accounts less and less for my very shamanic experiences.

God as a person might not be the answer, but persons seem to be irreducible, so a fundamental Person seems to be a sensible postulate.

There is no evidence for this... odd notion. The mystics never experience the godhead as a "Person". Not even the Buddhists have such an experience. Psychedelic users who experience profound ego-death and a merging with the universe also never report this. The furtherest I have gone in my... psychedelic / sober shamanic experiences is of some midway point towards my soul, which is still categorically me, though a far more expansive existence that includes me ~ I mean, something fundamental to it feels like me...

But "God"? No Western spiritual tradition outside of religion recognizes God-as-person nor does any Eastern spiritual tradition. It is only institutionalized religion that seems to enforce this weird idea of personhood and human-like personality onto "God", including the even more bizarre idea of separating into Creator and Creation, a very artificial and forced distinction that serves only a priesthood.

I don't see why causal interaction between minds and matter is particularly more problematic than the causal interaction within minds and matter that we already take for granted.

Because explaining interaction between entirely distinct substances is baffling. There is no common ground, and no causal explanation provided. Just "they interact because divine fiat"... uh, cool, but it answers nothing, except to handwave.

Causal interaction doesn't happen *within* minds or matter ~ that is what you do not comprehend. Matter is its own distinct form, mind is its own distinct form, and yet both are forms of energy, vibration, quality, this commonality allowing a very natural comprehension by mind.

Even spirits have forms ~ non-material, non-physical forms ~ but they are forms nonetheless, animated by mind. This is an existence Dualism does not account for, and so, it is automatically far below a basic Interactive Parallelism for me. Parallelism is just more Dualism for me... ad hoc explanations are not fun.

Taoism provides answers to some degree ~ unmanifest emptiness... is, but then comes into existence through some kind of actualization, but it's still just unmanifest infinity, without any distinction. It is the power of limitation that allows distinction, form and existence to be. Unmanifest infinity isn't reduced or altered ~ it is simply the ground on which manifest infinity blossoms and exists, existing fully within and of. Unmanifest infinity is, well, infinite, so nothing exists outside of it.

The Hindu Brahman makes an extremely similar statement from a philosophical and spiritual perspective. So does the Jewish mystical Kabbalah. Islam's mystical Sufism in turns also makes such a statement, though I am not learned in its particular subtleties.

Point being that every major mystical and spiritual traditional has ended up converging on extremely similar answers, albeit couched in different language.

It is Western science that has gone a very strange direction, seeking to split the world in a way that defies intuition, and even logic... per Dualism, thanks to Descartes, and Materialism and Physicalism, thanks to Atheistic disdain for Christianity.

Even Greece didn't have anything like Dualism. Not akin to Descartes' machine world.

No, not when mind and matter are radically different types of substance, and you haven't explained in any way how they could be reduced down to a third "neutral" substance; in fact, you haven't even proposed a third substance, only an infinity of pure potential out of which these two substances emerge.

Mind and matter are not "radically" different. Within the power of imagination, can we not easily form things, ideas, constructs? Even dreams are purely within the mind... and this reality does look suspiciously close to a dream, albeit one with profound structure and stability. The comparisons of this reality to the dreamscape do feel quite apt ~ it is only a small step to locate this dream outside of one's own mind. We cannot do this ~ but a higher spiritual entity, a soul, a set of souls, collectively... they seem to have powerful capabilities.

The neutral substance is not a "third" substance ~ it is THE substance, of which mind and matter are qualitatively derivative. Mind and matter are not substances, per this definition. They have no truly independent reality.

It's not even clear how God-as-person could logically create something from nothing ~ how does God-as-person create, and what is he creating with?

The resistance is due to the problems I've pointed out with your theory, which you've ignored. Again, your theory doesn't even seem to be a neutral monism: you seem to have simply misappropriated that term.

I could accuse you of misappropriating Interactive Dualism then... but that's as about as accurate as what you've just stated.

The resistance is in the conflict between the expanded reality I observe constantly, and the claims of Interactive Dualism. Of course... experience must win out, because Interactive Dualism is but a model, and all models are inaccurate. The territory is not the map. If the map is faulty, well, we need a new map...

Monism can then be framed as: experiencer and experienced are the same substance.

This isn't a fair statement to make ~ all Monisms derive entities distinct from one another, so saying they're the same substance is... oddly reductionist, in a way. In any Monism, mind and matter are considered distinct entities, in spite of being the same at an ultimate, unperceived level.

Dualism can then be framed as: experiencer and experienced are mostly different substances, except when one experiencer is experienced by another.

"Mostly different" doesn't make much sense. Experiencer and experienced must be entirely distinct in a pure Dualism ~ mind being the unperceived Experiencer, and matter being the ever-perceived Experienced. Noumena vs phenomena, in other words.

Even the spirits I interact with... I have never experienced them as experiencer. The closest we got in experiment was a very sharp, very fine needle of light. There seems to be fundamental limits to experiencing the experiencer... never directly, always through expression of existence. Frustrating, but highly interesting.

Given that experiencers are irreducible whereas - noted exception aside - that which is experienced can be reduced (to sub-atomic particles, etc), dualism is prima facie the more plausible option. That's aside from all of the many other arguments for dualism and against monism.

Experiencers are not entirely irreducible... the incarnate ego-personality is a limitation of soul, after all. Yes, the soul experiences no such reduction, but its incarnate aspects do, in terms of dissociation from the whole. It's the only explanation for parallel lives, additionally.

The experienced has far more dimensions than the material ~ there is the astral, the spiritual, whatever realms ghosts and spirits distinctly inhabit. My friend can sense ghosts but not spirits... and I seem to have the opposite ability, so what gives? Reality must have layers, and we can tune into them. NDEs present a layer of reality above this where the NDEr cannot interact with the material layer, but exist on that... OBE layer that seems distinct from what is reported by astral projectioners... and which also seems distinct from the layer of spirit entities.

Then there is the realities different psychedelics allow access to ~ DMT being by far the weirdest, though the Tibetan Buddhists claim that this is the Bardo Realm that they are familiar with, per Terence McKenna's reports. Then there are the psychedelic frames that Psilocybin and Ayahuasca provide access to. To say nothing is whatever the hell is going on with Salvia Divinorum, which is... something.

Then there even further distinct realms ~ the shamanic worlds of upper, middle and lower, which seem to overlap with the world of spirits.

Point being is that Dualism utterly fails to take anything in account that isn't the material and mind-as-we-know-it. It presents a miserably simplistic view of reality that simply doesn't mesh with reported experiences from multiple angles.

I don't understand how experiencers are mostly different save when experienced?

Nor do I, when we do not ever experience experiencers except through phenomenality ~ the experiencer remains firmly noumenal. Even Kant recognized this seemingly brute fact. I've ever turned my awareness upon itself... to find my awareness just hitting a hard limit.

Also it isn't clear there are sub-atomic particles, these may simply be field effects/excitations of some substance.

Whatever it is that the quantum is believed to be... for the spiritualist, matter is just vibration and energy, thus field effects and excitations as you state.

I do agree though that Experiencers are irreducible to any kind of "stuff" since arrangements of matter/subtle matter/ectoplasm/etc will only ever be correlates to mental activity. Yet "stuff" itself seems to only ever be known as "stuff" due to consensus experiences.

Indeed ~ through perception, which makes it murky as to how separate our perceptions are from us. The stuff-in-itself being ever noumenal...

I guess it isn't clear to me why Experiencers have to be distinct from the "stuff" that is Experienced.

Perhaps because it feels intuitive at this level of reality. It cannot be intuitive from an ultimate level, though.

Just out of curiosity, is there anyone debating here who *doesn't* believe in Personal Survival?

Because it seems to me this question of Functional vs Actual Dualism isn't all that important if perhaps the biggest question of concern is one where everyone currently involved in the back & forth agrees is a "yes" for Personal Survival...

Just out of curiosity, is there anyone debating here who *doesn't* believe in Personal Survival?

Because it seems to me this question of Functional vs Actual Dualism isn't all that important if perhaps the biggest question of concern is one where everyone currently involved in the back & forth agrees is a "yes" for Personal Survival...

I can chime in if you need someone agnostic about any kind of survival to debate.