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

[Laird]

@Laird 

Another point I think we do agree on, but is worth checking to ensure, is that “immaterial” in a strong sense does not mean ectoplasm, or whatever the afterlife realms are made of.

For me, and I believe for you, that could only be “immaterial” in a weak sense, different from our Earth-bound corporeal existence in degree - the difference between matter and subtle-matter.

To me the strong sense of something being “immaterial” is a radical difference in kind. For example when I say no arrangement of structure has to be intrinsically *about* anything I am not just referring to the organic stuff of the brain. Ectoplasm, ether, and so on would have the same issue. There is no arrangement of spiritual material that is intrinsically about anything else any more than, as per Alex Rosenberg, there can be neurons actually about Paris. Or, as Tallis would say, there is no engram that is intrinsically tied to memories.

IIRC we agree on this but figured it’s best to be sure. 

Yes, we're 100% in agreement here.

Yes, we're 100% in agreement here.

Yes, not by necessity, but it does seem to be entailed by Paul's (re)interpretation:

...

(I've snipped a lot simply to keep the conversation focussed. A lot (but far from all) of that was to do with causality: we already know that we disagree that it's problematic, and I don't think it's worth rehashing that disagreement in this exchange).

Seeing as neither of us are actually Monadists, I wanted to pause and take stock on why it's even worth bothering with Monadology, and why I'd want to - to use a term I learned from you - "steelman" that metaphysics. We seem to agree Persons are Monads in some sense (explained below) but where we seem to differ is *why* Monadology fails. The disagreement about causality is something I actually think *does* matter significantly more than disagreements we can cast aside IMO. I think this is because Causal Harmony - which ensures the reality of Logical chains of thought - is why there needs to be some kind of medium existing that connects all Monads.

As such I think it's worth extracting that out carefully ->

1. We both seem to agree Persons are Leibnizian Monads in the sense that they are "simple", meaning that it doesn't make sense to divide a Person. You can't have 30% of their love, 50% of their Reasoning, etc. Perhaps Persons can produce Alters, but it isn't even clear to me the original Person is destroyed because "destruction" - as noted by Leibniz - refers to a composite entity where decomposition into something "simpler" - in the sense that it has less and ultimately no parts - results in the loss of Form. Leibniz, in trying to explain how a Monad can be simple yet possess a diversity of qualities, actually uses the Mind as his prime example.

 So by saying a Person is a Monad, we are affirming their Personal Survival even if the current embodiment on Earth is ended by a loss of Form by the corporeal body. Now Leibniz says Monads are extensionless, and it at least *seems* we should agree with this given we don't think arrangements of matter / ether / ectoplasm / subtle-matter can be isomorphic to any thought or memory...but not sure we have to accept this just yet?

2. Our epistemology started with Persons, and while there may not be any actual "Pluralist Idealists" there do seem to be Monadists in the past and present. Monadology seems to be the first "baby step" away from our epistemology into ontology because a Monadology takes what we've agreed on - Persons - and tries to make them the sole constituent necessary to explain reality.

3. Upon consideration, not sure it matters that much for us whether the individual Monads have within their subconscious information of the Whole or whether God is the one who holds all potential discoveries that Monads can experience -- from the first childhood memory of seeing their tonsils or nose hairs or what's on the other side of this galaxy. So whether it's a "P2P Network" or "Many as Clients, One as Server" what matters is the question of whether we need something *more* than a Persons-Only Ontology.

4. Where a hypothetical Atheistic Monadology seems to fail is, at least for me, in the question of Causal Harmony. Even if Monads are just - as you aptly put it - a bunch of recorded tapes playing out a planned performance that only seems to be causally interactive I would still say it fails because it isn't clear to me why such recordings would have to last without some - to use a Scholastic term - "concurrent cause" that ensures this happens. Or to put it another way, I think Determinism's appeal to a kind of "Existential Inertia" wrt Causality is unearned, because something must keep holding the causal relation.

 I think this is rectified by including God as a sort of Ur-Monad, or beyond all Monads. God at the least seems to be a Monad in the way Persons are Monads, in the sense of being non-composite & conscious. I don't know if God *has* to be a Person, but it seems in Monadology that is the case. We can go with that for now I think? [If Persons can be created, it - as you've pointed out before - makes more sense Persons exist if God is a Person.]

5. Can Monads be Humean, by which I mean the seeming Causal Harmony in their Experience stream is just Luck? I think this could be true - barring potential objection by appeal to the Principle of Sufficient Reason (PSR) - for the part of their consensus Third Person part of reality, but not for their more private First Person experience involving Reason. I say this because under a Humean view of our mentality the following have the same amount of truth value:

 a) All men are mortal, Socrates is a man, therefore Socrates is a mortal.
 b) Colorless green ideas sleep furiously

 A Humean could try and argue that this actually is true, there is no genuine reality to logic, yet it seems to me they would instinctually try to make a logical argument for their case. As such it seems to me the reality of logical correctness is a "Deep Belief", as per David Ray Griffin - something we cannot help but accept as genuinely true.

6. Yet if logical correctness is true, then we have Reason to belief proofs are true. This includes proofs about triangles, about chess, about computer networks, etc. This suggests that certain aspects of the phenomenal experience stream have their existence tied to logical correctness, perhaps extending to all in the third person consensus that is amenable to mathematical modeling. So there has to be something or someone that ensures Causal Harmony as well as the Logical Universals.

  This is why Monadology needs God.

7. If God is the medium that ensures Causal Harmony between Monads, and can serve as the holder/provider - at least potentially - of all a Person-as-Monad can experience including all Universals....is there need for more? 

 Again I don't *think* Monadism is true, but I am not sure if this sort of Monadology is refutable? It also seems to be the most parsimonious metaphysics given our epistemology started with Persons, and Monadology could be defined as a Persons-only Ontology?

So that's my attempted steelmanning of Monadology. I realize there some things I glossed over, specifically the necessity of Universals held in the Mind of God...but IIRC we agree on that? If not, and if you feel it's relevant, definitely raise any objections you have.

I don't think I've covered every objection you've raised so I'll try to address that in the next post, yet feel free to add objections if you beat me to posting the next reply.

[Laird]

if you beat me to posting the next reply.

I probably will wait for your next reply so as to respond to both at once, but there's no guarantee of that. Thanks for laying all that out!

Yes, not by necessity, but it does seem to be entailed by Paul's (re)interpretation:

...

(I've snipped a lot simply to keep the conversation focussed. A lot (but far from all) of that was to do with causality: we already know that we disagree that it's problematic, and I don't think it's worth rehashing that disagreement in this exchange).

If I understand you correctly the argument is as follows:

1) There is a third person consensus, an at least seeming external world, built up by agreement between first person PoVs. This agreement separates hallucinations from reality because what is real can be reported to have causal efficacy across all first person observers, to the point some causal efficacy actually ends the reporting of certain first persons by death.

2) The third person consensus reality contains a lot of potential experiences for Persons. This is "information" not in a computational Shannon sense, but the more full idea of information as that which potentially can be experienced.

3) A Person having novel experiences is actualizing a potential experience. Yet that which is potential requires something to already be actualized for itself to be actualized. So that which is providing novel experiences for a particular Person - new ice cream flavor, vacationing in a new country, etc - has to be actual in some sense.

4) The actuality of that which is providing the information is better understood by accepting the actuality of a reality external to all Persons. This is because it is more parsimonious for there to be an external reality rather than just the pretense of one.

I actually wrote some more but then realized if I'm wrong about your argument I'm just wasting everyone's time, so cut & pasted that in a draft to see if it really aligns with what you wrote.

edit: Possibly of interest -> Bertrand Russell appparently thought of Leibniz's Monadism as a Pluralism, that every Person-as-Monad [is] a distinct substance. I've seen other stuff question whether Monadology is an Idealism or some other category of Ontology. Nevertheless I think it remains the first "baby step" from our epistemology which began with Persons.

 I would say rather than worrying too much yet about categorizing Monadology into one of the usual "Isms", the important thing is to recognize it as a Person-Only Ontology.

6. Yet if logical correctness is true, then we have Reason to belief proofs are true. This includes proofs about triangles, about chess, about computer networks, etc. This suggests that certain aspects of the phenomenal experience stream have their existence tied to logical correctness, perhaps extending to all in the third person consensus that is amenable to mathematical modeling. So there has to be something or someone that ensures Causal Harmony as well as the Logical Universals.

Popper defined all this in a detailed fashion in his 3 Worlds.  The question that arises is like that posed by Wigner and his paper on the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics.  In my terms something-like Causal Harmony is in the 3rd environment, outside of science.   Likewise: why is logic (like math) so effective?   Information, as represented by wave functions for activity as meaning, is embedded in measurable reality.  When this paper came pout - I lost my mind.

Main results. We show that quantum states from a certain class encode mathematical axioms and that corresponding measurements test the truth-values of mathematical propositions. Quantum mechanics imposes an upper limit on how much information can be carried by a quantum state ('N qubits carry N bits of information'), thus limiting the information content of the set of axioms. We show that whenever a mathematical proposition is logically independent of the axioms encoded in the state, the measurement associated to the proposition gives random outcomes. Whenever the proposition is logically dependent on the axioms, the measurement outcome is definite. This shines new light on the nature of quantum randomness without invoking the quantum formalism itself.   T Paterek, J Kofler, R Prevedel, P Klimek, M Aspelmeyer, A Zeilinger and Č Brukner  

  a whose who of quantum information science  https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.10...2/1/013019

From Wiki
 

 Popper's three worlds is a way of looking at and understanding reality, developed by the British philosopher Karl Popper in many lectures and books, for example "Objective Knowledge - An Evolutionary Approach" (1972) and "The Self And Its Brain" (1977). Popper's theory involves three interacting worlds, called world 1, world 2 and world 3.

Popper defined all this in a detailed fashion in his 3 Worlds.  The question that arises is like that posed by Wigner and his paper on the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics.  In my terms something-like Causal Harmony is in the 3rd environment, outside of science.   Likewise: why is logic (like math) so effective?   Information, as represented by wave functions for activity as meaning, is embedded in measurable reality.  When this paper came pout - I lost my mind.
  a whose who of quantum information science  https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.10...2/1/013019

From Wiki

Heh not sure if I genuinely understand the paper but I believe [its] importance lies here:

Having this isomorphism, logical independence need not be proved by logic but can be inferred from experimental results. From the foundational point of view, this sheds new light on the (mathematical) origin of quantum randomness in these measurements. Under the assumption that the information content of N elementary physical systems (i.e. qubits) is fundamentally restricted to N bits such that no underlying (hidden variable) structure exists, measurement outcomes corresponding to logically independent propositions must be irreducibly random.

I am unclear on why the bold follows from their results? I accept that representing logical statements of a certain kind via quantum states allows one to test for logical independence - by AFAICTell multiple runs of the experiment - but why does irreducible indeterminism follow from "the assumption that the information content of N elementary physical systems (i.e. qubits) is fundamentally restricted to N bits such that no underlying (hidden variable) structure exists"?

Is this because there is not enough information in the system to determine, with certainty, whether the propositions are logically independent or not? So there is some inevitable "surprise" in the model?

All that said, regarding Poppers 3 worlds - This is something I've been thinking about over the last few days:

Are there entities we would consider to be mental yet impersonal?

If we accept that at the least Logic and Math are a study of Universals, contextless/Eternal truths, then the question becomes "Where are they?"

In Five Proofs of God, Feser draws on the Classical argument that Unviersals belong in the mind of God:

This brings us, at last, to Scholastic realism, which is essentially Aristotelian in spirit, but gives at least a nod to Platonic realism.8 Like Aristotelian realism, Scholastic realism affirms that universals exist only either in the things that instantiate them, or in intellects which entertain them. It agrees that there is no Platonic “third realm” independent both of the material world and of all intellects. However, the Scholastic realist agrees with the Platonist that there must be some realm distinct both from the material world and from human and other finite intellects. In particular—and endorsing a thesis famously associated with Saint Augustine—it holds that universals, propositions, mathematical and logical truths, and necessities and possibilities exist in an infinite, eternal, divine intellect. If some form of realism must be true, then, but Platonic realism and Aristotelian realism are in various ways inadequate, then the only remaining version, Scholastic realism, must be correct. And since Scholastic realism entails that there is an infinite divine intellect, then there really must be such an intellect. In other words, God exists.

Feser, Edward. Five Proofs of the Existence of God (pp. 102-103). Ignatius Press. Kindle Edition.

That's actually a pretty good argument, IMO, but consider Frege's statement on maths:

'Thus the thought which we expressed in the Pythagorean theorem is timelessly true, true independently of whether anyone takes it to be true. It needs no bearer. It is not true for the first time when it is discovered, but is like a newly discovered planet.'

This also seems valid, that even if no One exists the theorem would still be true.

At the very least I think there's reason to believe that our experience of mathematics is an experience of something outside non-Divine minds. After all how can an instructor refine a student's understanding of proofs unless there is a "place" of true understanding to shepherd the pupil toward?

The alternative would be that the quale of logical correctness is merely a feeling....yet given all our technology rests on maths which rest on the feeling of logical correctness being invoked only for proper arguments to claim that is to, as I see it, claim something that is quite bizarre.

So if Mathematical Truths are impersonal, does that mean they aren't mental? Or does it mean that mental entities can exist, in particular cases, independent of Persons?

And what about the other Universals? Even the staunch atheist Russell accepted their existence:

As a matter of fact, if any one were anxious to deny altogether that there are such things as universals, we should find that we cannot strictly prove that there are such entities as qualities, i.e. the universals represented by adjectives and substantives, whereas we can prove that there must be relations, i.e. the sort of universals generally represented by verbs and prepositions. Let us take in illustration the universal whiteness. If we believe that there is such a universal, we shall say that things are white because they have the quality of whiteness. This view, however, was strenuously denied by Berkeley and Hume, who have been followed in this by later empiricists.

It seems Whitehead's Eternal Objects would occupy a similar place in reality:

Whitehead’s use of the word “eternal” might seem to be a strange move, in the context of a philosophy grounded in events, becomings, and continual change and novelty. And indeed, as if acknowledging this, he remarks that, “if the term ‘eternal objects’ is disliked, the term “potentials’ would be suitable” instead (149). But if Whitehead prefers to retain the appellation “eternal objects,” this is precisely because he seeks – like Nietzsche, Bergson, and Deleuze – to reject the Platonic separation between eternity and time, the binary opposition that sets a higher world of permanence and perfection (“a static, spiritual heaven”) against an imperfect lower world of flux (209). The two instead must continually interpenetrate. For “permanence can be snatched only out of flux; and the passing moment can find its adequate intensity only by its submission to permanence. Those who would disjoin the two elements can find no interpretation of patent facts” (338). Actual entities continually perish; but the relations between them, or the patterns that they make, tend to recur, or endure. Thus “it is not ‘substance’ which is permanent, but ‘form.’ ” And even forms do not subsist absolutely, but continually “suffer changing relations” (29). In asserting this, Whitehead converts Plato from idealism to empiricism, just as he similarly converts Spinoza, Leibniz, Hume, and Kant

If we have impersonal Mathematical Structures and Universals for colors, squareness, etc....is that enough to make an Idealist "out there" that is mental yet not belonging to any Minds?

Or should we accept that this means we are, in some sense, "within" the Mind of a Personal God?

My suspicion is there's no good way to know, and so we remain in a tension between Monism and Pluralism...though Naomi Fisher has suggested the way to look at this is as a Plurarity-Monism where the Absolute / One grounds the Many but [are] not derived from It in a total dependency. In fact she believes Shelling's Priority Monism was one where the Absolute conferred Its nature as a fundamental thing-in-Itself to the Many so that they would, in turn, also be fundamental things-in-themselves.

I'm wary of taking [these] ideas as confirmation of 3 Worlds, as per Whitehead's own wariness of having some Eternal extra reality. But if we see the 3 Worlds as abstractions of fundamental aspects that are always in actuality part of a harmonious Whole I see this perhaps working out? [OTOH I'd reject any strong emergence from each "World" level to the next.]

And what about the other Universals? Even the staunch atheist Russell accepted their existence:

Possibly of use:





@stephenw You might find the idea of Logic's foundations starting from a Binary of "Is Alike" / "Is Not Alike" as being amenable with Informational Realism?

[Laird]

@Sciborg_S_Patel,

As I've just written in your Monadology thread, I don't think that Monadism is in fact a form of idealism. What exactly it is is not clear to me, but it doesn't seem totally coherent anyhow. As I suggested in that thread, given its confusing nature, I think we should stop discussing it in this thread and discuss it only in that thread, instead discussing here "pure" pluralistic idealism (a person-only ontology as you put it).

I suggest that the most relevant three possible forms of pluralistic idealism are:

1. Parallelism: this is how Monadism would be when (re)interpreted/corrected to be a pure, unconfused pluralistic idealism. All that exist are persons: God plus the rest of us. God prearranges this set of persons such that over time, each person has a continuous set of perspectival phenomenal (especially perceptual) experiences in parallel with - but causally unaffected by - all other persons, and He prearranges that those experiences appear to reflect an inter-subjectively consistent physical reality (which He models in his mind prior to setting up the experiences for each person, so as to ensure that they're inter-subjectively consistent). It's logically consistent, but implausible and unappealing. Yuck. If there's no causal interaction anyway, then why bother with inter-subjective consistency? This is essentially solipsism en masse.
   
2. Client-server: As for parallelism, but with nothing prearranged, and with God's model of the physical world being updated in real time as all other persons exercise their volition, and the updated model being used to generate perspectival phenomenal (especially perceptual) experiences for those persons, which He impresses upon them via some sort of telepathy.
   
3. Peer-to-peer: As for client-server, but with no God, or with a God who in terms of "physical reality" acts merely as another peer, albeit an exalted one. Somehow, the model of physical reality is distributed among and maintained by all peers, with each peer translating the relevant "sufficiently local" part of the model into its own perspectival phenomenal (especially perceptual) experience for itself, subconsciously, presumably, given that I'm not conscious of performing this translation myself.
   

Now, you wrote:

If I understand you correctly the argument is as follows

Unfortunately, while your paraphrasing was vaguely in the ballpark, it wasn't close enough for me to endorse it. Here's my own summary:

Let's simplify things by solely considering the modelled "physical reality" in terms of the three-dimensional space of classical physics, and the perspectival phenomenal (perceptual) experience of vision.

We can think in terms of a multiplayer first-person shooter game. The game engine needs to model the location and shapes of all of the objects in the game world. It then needs, for each player, to consider that player's location in the game, and to build a visual representation of the game world from that player's perspective based on its model, which it then shows on the player's screen.

This is roughly what I'm talking about when I refer to an information model of "physical reality" which needs to be translated into a perspectival phenomenal experience. The player is the person on pluralistic idealism; the game engine's model of the game world is the information model for the pluralistic idealism's representation of "physical reality".

My argument, then, is, roughly, this:

There is clearly on pluralistic idealism a need for an information model of "physical reality" (like that generated by/for the game engine of a multiplayer first-person shooter game) to ensure that all persons have an inter-subjectively consistent perceptual experience of that "reality".

This is true for both peer-to-peer and client-server pluralistic idealism (and for parallelism, but yuck, let's exclude that one from the get-go).

Both require this information model to be updated in real time, whether between the peers (complex and tricky) or mediated via the server (somewhat simpler). Both then require this model to be (somehow) translated into a perspectival phenomenal (perceptual) experience for each person.

However, it is far more parsimonious for this information to be mind-independent and embedded in, and experienced more or less directly via, a truly existent physical reality than for it to be stored in, updated in, and translated into experience by, a mind or peer group of minds.

Hence, dualism is more parsimonious than pluralistic idealism.

Now, addressing your previous post with eight numbered points.

Up front, I unfortunately disagree that you've made a case that we cannot elide our differences over the (non-)problem of causality. I continue to think that causality is not a problem here, and that it is not worth rehashing the purported problem in this discussion. I get that you disagree. That's unfortunate, but there's simply no way forward. I don't see any problem with causality, including chains of reasoning. If we're going to take as brute fact the existence of persons, then we can take as brute fact their faculties, including reasoning, and any inter-subjective causality.

In brief, in response to each of your points:

#1. Agreed.

#2. I prefer to reference the three models I outlined above, for the reason given earlier in this post.

#3. We don't strictly "need" more, but, per my above argument, it's much more parsimonious to have more.

#4, #5, #6. See my "Up front" paragraph above.

#7. Again, see my argument above.

@Sciborg_S_Patel,

...

#7. Again, see my argument above.

So if I understand this correctly the Dualism has little to nothing to do with Survival evidence but rather is a Dualism between Persons and that which is Impersonal, whatever the Impersonal is - Matter, Fields, Platonic Maths + Universals, etc?

I mean if that's the case I would agree that all metaphysics outside of Monadology would probably be Dualisms of a sort, and possibly would include Monadology depending on whether a Causal Network is part of God. (I say God here in the sense of a Divine Person, a necessary Grounding Agent for all other Persons, because if we're talking about the Absolute as something other than a Person we're already at the Personal/Impersonal Dualism.)

But wouldn't this apply to most Idealisms if they divide what is Conscious and what is in Consciousness? Even most Physicalisms save for those (Type-B or some such?) that try to claim pains/thoughts/etc just *are* Structures would be Dualist in this sense? (Admittedly all Physicalisms are nonsense, but this one we can reject as even more nonsenscial. I just bring it up to show my potential confusion regarding your argument.)

The only exceptions besides Monadology I can think of then would maybe be the Pan-isms, though even there you might have Pluralisms if for example non-Divine Persons are conscious fields while "God" is a Mind identified with the fabric of space itself (Itself?)...this would still be a "Person-only" ontology but with some extended elements that all have mental character but are, for other reasons, to be regarded as different substances.

I like the Game World analogy, I was thinking of the question in similar terms. I can go deeper into that part but I want to make sure I am understanding the basic argument first.

@Laird 

If there really is a proper, actual external reality... how do we explain qualia, given that we can never observe the thing-in-itself? Qualia are private, as it were, yet rely fully on interaction with the so-called external world. Actually... when it comes the shared physical medium, all we have are our private qualia.

There is a mystery of why things can interact at all ~ why can I touch, say, a table, and feel a certain sensation? Why do all of we humans generally share very similar, if not the same, range of archetypal sensory awareness to draw upon, that allow us humans to communicate, indirectly, that we are experiencing this thing or that thing ~ hot, redness, sweetness, pain, love, etc?

If the world is truly external, then why do we experience being so truly part of it, through the sheerness of continuous sensory awareness?

It is natural for us to say "I am in pain" ~ it is the external, physical body that is felt to be hurting, yet because matter and physics has no concept of pain, that pain must be entirely mental... or astral, or whatever. Unless what we think of as the "physical body" is simply the closest layer of the astral body to the physical, hence appearing to be identical for all intents and purposes.

If I touch a table, and feel a wooden feeling... is that not a direct sensing of qualia, a sensory interpretation of something? Thus, it is rather unclear that there is a distinction between Experiencer and what is within Experience, except that we decide what is so based on our immediate mental model of reality.