Chalmers on potential movement toward Idealism

Idealism and the Mind-Body Problem

When I was in graduate school, I recall hearing “One starts as a materialist, then one becomes a dualist, then a panpsychist, and one ends up as an idealist”.

I don’t know where this comes from, but I think the idea was something like this. First, one is impressed by the successes of science, endorsing materialism about everything and so about the mind. Second, one is moved by problem of consciousness to see a gap between physics and consciousness, thereby endorsing dualism, where both matter and consciousness are fundamental. Third, one is moved by the inscrutability of matter to realize that science reveals at most the structure of matter and not its underlying nature, and to speculate that this nature may involve consciousness, thereby endorsing panpsychism. Fourth, one comes to think that there is little reason to believe in anything beyond consciousness and that the physical world is wholly constituted by consciousness, thereby endorsing idealism. Some recent strands in philosophical discussion of the mind–body problem have recapitulated this progression: the rise of materialism in the 1950s and 1960s, the dualist response in the 1980s and 1990s, the festival of panpsychism in the 2000s, and some recent stirrings of idealism.

In my own work, I have certainly taken the first two steps and have flirted heavily with the third. In this paper I want to examine the prospects for the fourth step: the move to idealism.

I recall posting something similar from Chalmers during another discussion. I'm glad to see him moving in that direction because I almost started with idealism and have often looked back in the other direction and wondered. I'm still convinced I happened to get it right, however. 

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Just read this paper, or rather book chapter.

A bit surprising to see Chalmers go this far in choosing what he calls "cosmic idealism" (Kastrup's position) as the "most promising version" of any idealism or panpsychism conceptual frame to address the mind-body problem. (In fairness he concludes by stating that all positions on the mind-body problem - materialism, dualism etc. - are "implausible".

I conclude that there is significant motivation for cosmic idealism. It shares the general moti- vations for panpsychism, which are strong, and has some extra motivation in addition. Compared to micro-idealism, it deals much better with the problems of spacetime and of holism, and it at least has some extra promise in dealing with the problem of causation and the all-important con- stitution problem. Compared to non-idealist forms of panpsychism and panprotopsychism, it has some advantages in simplicity and comprehensibility, while it has both benefits and costs with respect to the constitution problem. I do not know that the constitution problem can be solved, but there are at least avenues worth exploring. Overall, I think cosmic idealism is the most promising version of idealism, and is about as promising as any version of panpsychism. It should be on the list of the handful of promising approaches to the mind–body problem.

A chapter that's part of the very recent, 2021 book The Routledge Handbook on Panpsychism. Definitely sounds like something I wanna get.

Just read this paper, or rather book chapter.

A bit surprising to see Chalmers go this far in choosing what he calls "cosmic idealism" (Kastrup's position) as the "most promising version" of any idealism or panpsychism conceptual frame to address the mind-body problem. (In fairness he concludes by stating that all positions on the mind-body problem - materialism, dualism etc. - are "implausible".



A chapter that's part of the very recent, 2021 book The Routledge Handbook on Panpsychism. Definitely sounds like something I wanna get.

If you google cosmic idealism, Ian, it will bring up Chalmers work right at the top in a pdf. It says it's not safe on my computer but I just tried it and it worked fine (safely). Don't take my word for it, though. There is a long chapter in this PDF on it, free.

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Yeah I don't know if I was clear, tim, but I read it already. Sci has it linked at the top of his post.

Yeah I don't know if I was clear, tim, but I read it already. Sci has it linked at the top of his post.

Oh, I see, Ian no worries !

I still consider dualism as the most likely theory of mind, regardless of the supposed philosophical superiority of idealism, primarily because I consider that in principle the (paranormal) evidence or data is paramount over, trumps, theory. Several classes of paranormal empirical evidence are much more readily and simply explained by dualism, especially the veridical evidence of NDEs, and reincarnation memories of small children.

I think there is both an objective external world and a separate spiritual realm, versus everything being mental, and this model much better fits the aforementioned data.

A good summary courtesy poster Silver Asiatic at Uncommon Descent:

"If we have universals (abstract concepts) that are distinct from particular, we have a basis for material/immaterial dualism. This refutes monism.
We can start with the Law of Identity. Already, our rational process requires a dualism: “This thing is one thing which is not all other things”. That’s the dualistic nature of rational thought. Monism would have to deny that.
Additionally, people deny the dualism of truth vs falsehood. However, we align truth with “what is real”. That’s how we validate the idea. So, we have reality vs illusion – or truth vs falsehood. All of these are dualisms. Again, this is just breaking down monism – either “all mind” monism or “all material” it doesn’t matter. In an absolute monist system, you can’t make distinctions. Everything is one. But that violates the Law of Identity and is thus irrational.
A person could argue for absurdity by saying that logic does not correspond to reality and truth and falsehood are equal, and that the Law of Non-Contradiction does not hold.
If we said “but you’re contradicting yourself” they can say “so what?”
All of that’s fine except nobody can communicate with that person and the person has affirmed (which is a statement of truth) that rational thought has no value, etc.
Basically that’s just insanity.
So instead, we affirm that rational distinctions are based on reality. Therefore there really are two apples, and when we have two more, we count them to be four apples. They are real.

I can accept that a person may reject this and insist that all is mind and there is no physical reality (given quantum indeterminacy, etc).
The biggest logical problem I’ve found with that, however, is why all of humanity has intuitively felt that there is an external, material reality and even the science we’ve used to discover quantum effects is based on that same ontology.
In other words, there does not seem to be a good reason to reject our intuition about life and reality especially considering that even if we thought that everything-is-mind, we’d still have to live and think and speak as if there is a reality outside of us and that physical objects really exist."

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I'm not qualified to answer the above, but my intuitive answer in terms of the "dualism of truth and falsehood", is that that isn't a problem for idealism, or variants of it, which constantly use that "duality". Also Kastrup, for instance, uses the duality of subjective mind (consciousness) and the "external" appearance of consciousness (what see as a "physical brain" for example).

Again, I'm stepping outside my comfort zone and risking appearing like a dunce, but I don't immediately see how monism as an ontology - in the terms of idealism let's say "everything is mental processes" - has to dictate monism in the specific contents of those mental processes, e.g. ideas.

I'm sure there must be learned idealist thinkers who've tackled this question.

Dualism doesn't have to conflict with Idealism. (Again, Taoism fits a Dualist framework within a Monist / Non-Dualist framework quite happily.)

If everything is a form of Universal Mind... why can't that Universal Mind logically create ideas which have fundamentally different qualities, despite having the same ultimate root of origin?

Imagination is the sandbox of creation... we, with our small-scale minds, can imagine all sorts of weird and wonderful things, and have used that power of imagination to create not only complex physical tools, emotional and moving music, powerful pieces of art, but also awe-inspiring fantasy worlds replete with concepts and ideas that make no sense in this one.

In short, imagination is everything and then some.

On a much grander scale, imagination can quite simply create everything without issue, including not only matter and the laws of physics, but also how matter and mind interact.

The way I see it, mind is everything, matter is everything, everything is everything, it just depends which lens you are looking through when you interpret the information.  We give each thing a name relating to the particular concept we wish to impose on it, thus separating it from everything else in order to communicate with other people but, like the mathematics model, the language model is not reality.  The map is not the terrain and the menu is not the meal. It punctuates and separates that which is not separate.   I don't know if there is a name for my position.