Dualism or idealist monism as the best model for survival after death data

Dualism can seem "simple". Except for a massive problem that Dualism can never really satisfactorily answer ~ how can, nevermind do, two base substances, which are extreme opposites, in terms of nature, interact at all? Mind, being entirely subjective, lacking any and all physical qualities, and matter, lacking in any and all mental qualities.

Dualism can seem "simple", only if this massive problem is ignored, or even minimized.

Interactionism? Sure, it can be posited... but it has always seemed very shoddy and flimsy a solution to me... one that merely attempts to paper over the mind-body problem.

Why not just posit a monist base substance that underlies mind and matter? Where mind and matter are, in basis, of the same origin, but manifested in very different ways. Not being their own base substances, but originating from something more primal. It still has some shortcomings... but at least it tries at make an practical explanation of how mind and matter can interact at all.

It seems to me, Idealist Monism has the massive problem that its detailed structure has to be so excessively complicated and cleverly contrived to create the necessary illusions so as try to account for the massive amount of empirical paranormal data accumulated with veridical NDEs, reincarnation cases, many mediumistic communications, and as I have recently found out, the epilepsy brain surgery findings from the over 1000 neurosurgical operations of Wilder Penfield, and the free will and "free won't" experiments of Benjamin Libet. Much or most of this empirical evidence and more can be fairly easily and simply explained by interactive Dualism, where these phenomena and others are pretty much what they look like, which is that the soul or spirit is basically an immaterial mobile center of consciousness ultimately independent of and separate from the physical brain, that in physical life "inhabits" the physical brain and body .

As you mention, the interaction problem remains, but I think it is fairly simply handled by a solution where the interaction mechanism is a purposeful special case in the laws of our reality (a "brute fact" of reality established by the powers-that-be for their own purposes, similar to the laws of physics being "fine-tuned" for the existence of life) that primarily is designed in to enable physical embodiment of souls in human bodies, and where this mechanism is optimized for the requirements of the neuronal brain structure/spirit interface interaction. There is so much data that would very much be expected to exist if this hypothesis were the truth.

Whereas in Idealist Monism, a very complex set of contrived auxiliary hypotheses have to be invoked in order to explain the who, why and how of there being so many human experiential phenomena consisting of the illusion of there being a separate mobile center of consciousness able to leave the body/brain and travel to other locations in the physical world, observe there and be observed and recognized, and also travel some apparently very great "distance" to an existentially separate spiritual realm and to there encounter and interact with spirit entities some of which are deceased loved ones. Plus, in the Wilder Penfield and Benjamin Libet work, the strong illusion of the human Self as a hybrid being, a physical/immaterial combination where the physical component is generated by the brain and basically deterministic and not exhibiting free will, and the immaterial spiritual part (the soul or spirit) is independent of the brain and able to travel elsewhere then return to the body and is free, has true free will.

Why such an elaborate charade? The Ockham's Razor Principle of Parsimony dictating against the unnecessary multiplication of explanatory complications has been found to be extremely useful in guiding science to the most likely hypotheses/theories, based on their simplicity, and choosing Idealist Monism very much seems counter to this principle. Of course, Idealism could still be true, but it would very much be an outlier in that this choice would have to ignore this core principle in scientific enquiry.

Of course there is also Psi's interesting Pluralistic hypothesis of there being a multiplicity of many varyingly intersecting different Realities, not just immaterialspiritual and physical. It seems to me this is promising, even though it on the surface seems to invoke much of the apparently unnecessary complexity problem.

Well the physicist Henry Stapp has already addressed that, assuming that consciousness really is required to collapse wave functions (or at least that it can do it faster than might otherwise be the case).

But suppose by hypothesis that is not how mind and body interact - you have the problem of selecting the philosophical position before the science is settled! You need a theory that matches the state of science - which is still fairly primitive in the case of consciousness.

Maybe this is the real problem here - trying to select the philosophy ahead of establishing the relevant science!

To me, the real blockage is that without a simple theory that can be tested, people end up reporting anomalous results. That implies to many that the experiment was simply done badly, and should be ignored. In turn, that makes people avoid doing experiments that might return anomalous results.

This is not a trivial problem. Most of us here accept that there are masses of 'anomalous' results building up and never taken seriously - just because they can't be classified as evidence for a particular theory.

Most science treats its theories in a much more pragmatic fashion - such as using Newton's theory for most purposes, and SR or GR only if absolutely necessary!

Stapp has written about Whitehead's Panpsychist-type beliefs in accordance with his ideas relating to mind-matter interaction as well as co-authored an article on Idealism being supported by physics.

How can one test dualism, and how would it help promote the varied Psi phenomenon? Most scientists seem to reject Dualism outright. Even many prominent philosophers seem to have no interest in reviving Dualism.

I don't even know if science could show us which metaphysical position is correct, though it could help eliminate the likelihood of bad ideas. But in mainstream academia materialism has been seen to be problematic in recent years due to philosophical considerations rather than parapsychogical ones.

Beyond that, I think one would need to elaborate on what they mean by Dualism - to suggest Cartesian Dualism where Mind is extensionless seems like a non-starter that would be outright rejected by the vast majority of scientists?

It seems to me, Idealist Monism has the massive problem that its detailed structure has to be so excessively complicated and cleverly contrived to create the necessary illusions so as try to account for the massive amount of empirical paranormal data accumulated with veridical NDEs, reincarnation cases, many mediumistic communications, and as I have recently found out, the epilepsy brain surgery findings from the over 1000 neurosurgical operations of Wilder Penfield, and the free will and "free won't" experiments of Benjamin Libet. Much or most of this empirical evidence and more can be fairly easily and simply explained by interactive Dualism, where these phenomena and others are pretty much what they look like, which is that the soul or spirit is basically an immaterial mobile center of consciousness ultimately independent of and separate from the physical brain, that in physical life "inhabits" the physical brain and body .

As you mention, the interaction problem remains, but I think it is fairly simply handled by a solution where the interaction mechanism is a purposeful special case in the laws of our reality (a "brute fact" of reality established by the powers-that-be for their own purposes, similar to the laws of physics being "fine-tuned" for the existence of life) that primarily is designed in to enable physical embodiment of souls in human bodies, and where this mechanism is optimized for the requirements of the neuronal brain structure/spirit interface interaction. There is so much data that would very much be expected to exist if this hypothesis were the truth.

Whereas in Idealist Monism, a very complex set of contrived auxiliary hypotheses have to be invoked in order to explain the who, why and how of there being so many human experiential phenomena consisting of the illusion of there being a separate mobile center of consciousness able to leave the body/brain and travel to other locations in the physical world, observe there and be observed and recognized, and also travel some apparently very great "distance" to a spiritual realm and to there encounter and interact with spirit entities some of which are deceased loved ones. Plus, in the Wilder Penfield and Benjamin Libet work, the strong illusion of the human Self as a hybrid physical/immaterial combination where the physical component is generated by the brain and basically deterministic and not exhibiting free will, and the immaterial spiritual part (the soul or spirit) is independent of the brain and able to travel elsewhere then return to the body and is free, has true free will.

Why such an elaborate charade? The Ockham's Razor Principle of Parsimony dictating against the unnecessary multiplication of explanatory complications has been found to be extremely useful in guiding science to the most likely hypotheses/theories, based on their simplicity, and choosing Idealist Monism very much seems counter to this principle. Of course, Idealism could still be true, but it would very much be an outlier in that this choice would have to ignore this core principle in scientific enquiry.

Of course there is also Sci's interesting Pluralistic hypothesis of there being a multiplicity of many varyingly intersecting different Realities, not just immaterialspiritual and physical. It seems to me this is promising, even though it on the surface seems to invoke much of the apparently unnecessary complexity problem.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but you are suggesting here more of a "hyper-spatial" Dualism, where both the mental/spirit and the physical are extended rather than a Cartesian Dualism where the mental is extensionless and thus has no spatial properties. I assume the former because if NDEs are visiting a place beyond this w[o]rld that place itself is extended. (There's also Hylemorphic Dualism but that just gets us into newer weeds that I don't think you or David intend for us to wander through.)

It's still not clear to me why you think the evidence is more for Dualism than another option? One has to consider not just anomalous data from parapsychology but also basic facts like alcohol consumption affecting thoughts. But even things like verdical NDEs require the subtle-body/soul to observed the physical which implies continuity of information from the mundane world to the spirit/mental form. PK, going in the other direction, suggests not only continuity but even a sense of strained muscular pushing with the effort it often takes to produce effects. In fact for PK to work it suggests that has to be something in matter that is receptive to mental force.

Reincarnation, with the curious fact of birthmarks sometimes matching wounds or other bodily alterations like tattoos, again suggests the physical is not divorced from the mental/spiritual but has at least some axes of causal interaction. Also ectoplasm and conjuration by mediums, "alien" encounters where the aliens seem to have very odd relationships with the physical world, and so on...

I do agree with you that when looking at certain divisions between the mental and physical, Idealist Monism has to set up what looks to be arbitrary rules to try and explain the effort Psi at times takes as well as other issues. However, if Dualism can claim the Interaction Problem is solved by Designers it seems to me Idealism could claim the same thing. Though I don't believe Valmar is proposing Idealism here, but rather something more like the Neutral Monism of the Tao.

One of the challenges here, it seems to me, is we haven't really tried to figure out what it means for there to be a substance? This question actually got me to be more skeptical of the Interaction Problem because it seems difficult to define one substance as distinct from another without using causal interaction as a guide...but this would mean proposing an Interaction Problem may just be begging the question against the Dualist. After all what do fields, forces, matter have in common that they are a single "substance"? How is space-time emergent from physics, when the original conception of the physical world was based in the day-to-day empiricism of our world that would be contrasted with the too-often-invisible spiritual world? Of course, the shift of physics into stranger and stranger realms also makes it seem the "physical" is not altogether different from what we might call the "spiritual" or "mental".

For Hyperspatial Dualism, which avoids the oddity of dimension-less non-spatial minds, I think a problem remains because to make sense of it one has to posit two overlapping realities that have axes of causal interaction but are distinct in some important ways such as the OOBEr not being affected by physical forces in the same way as when they are in their physical body. All the worse for my Pluralism of course, which is why I have some sympathy for the idea that all the realities are ultimately crafted from some kind of transcendent Light that might fit Steve Taylor's "Pan-spiritism".

Well the physicist Henry Stapp has already addressed that, assuming that consciousness really is required to collapse wave functions (or at least that it can do it faster than might otherwise be the case).

But suppose by hypothesis that is not how mind and body interact - you have the problem of selecting the philosophical position before the science is settled! You need a theory that matches the state of science - which is still fairly primitive in the case of consciousness.

Maybe this is the real problem here - trying to select the philosophy ahead of establishing the relevant science!

To me, the real blockage is that without a simple theory that can be tested, people end up reporting anomalous results. That implies to many that the experiment was simply done badly, and should be ignored. In turn, that makes people avoid doing experiments that might return anomalous results.

This is not a trivial problem. Most of us here accept that there are masses of 'anomalous' results building up and never taken seriously - just because they can't be classified as evidence for a particular theory.

Most science treats its theories in a much more pragmatic fashion - such as using Newton's theory for most purposes, and SR or GR only if absolutely necessary!

Why does the theory have to "match" the science...? I don't comprehend why this is necessary, considering that philosophy has explored the nature of reality and mind for millennia before science ever came along, before many a modern scientist arrogantly decided that they no longer needed philosophy, that science was superior and could, with enough time, answer any and all questions about anything...

Science, as it is, is not separate from philosophy ~ indeed, it is wholly defined by it. And science is only ever as good as the scientists which contribute to that umbrella. Every scientist inevitably, invariably, inescapably, has a philosophical position of some kind. Even the position of denying philosophy is a philosophical position!

Science itself has nothing to say about metaphysics, because it is a problem far beyond science's capabilities. Science, as a tool, can complement the metaphysical quest, certainly, but it is only ever a tool. Of course, some, like Hume, elevated science beyond mere tool-hood, believing that philosophical pursuits were meaningless noise, because they didn't involve pure science. For Hume, and other Empiricists like him, science, via sense-experience, was all that mattered. And everything in science comes down to, in some fashion or another, sense-experience.

I am not opposed to Interactionist Dualism... it alone is simply insufficient in answering the mind-body interaction problem. It's a plain steak... in wanting of some... fat and / or some salt. To make it enjoyable and tasty.

Mind and matter need some form of... glue, so to speak, to be able to interact at all. It can even be said that Interactionism, in its intersection between mind and matter, unwittingly implies a form of monism somewhere in that intersection!

Why try so hard to avoid some form of monism, when it, ironically, is simpler than having two extremely different base substances which logically shouldn't be able to interact, given their completely alien natures? (Nevermind that Dualism leaves open the door for even more undiscovered base substances that haven't been taken account of aka pluralism... which also has the same interaction problems at its root...)

It seems to me, Idealist Monism has the massive problem that its detailed structure has to be so excessively complicated and cleverly contrived to create the necessary illusions so as try to account for the massive amount of empirical paranormal data accumulated with veridical NDEs, reincarnation cases, many mediumistic communications, and as I have recently found out, the epilepsy brain surgery findings from the over 1000 neurosurgical operations of Wilder Penfield, and the free will and "free won't" experiments of Benjamin Libet. Much or most of this empirical evidence and more can be fairly easily and simply explained by interactive Dualism, where these phenomena and others are pretty much what they look like, which is that the soul or spirit is basically an immaterial mobile center of consciousness ultimately independent of and separate from the physical brain, that in physical life "inhabits" the physical brain and body .

You seem to lump all branches of Idealism into one blob... when the different branches offer very different perspectives on the nature of mind being the base substance. It irritates me to see you not take these distinctions into account when you criticize Idealism. It makes me puzzle over whether you actually understand Idealism or are strawmanning it so as to cut it down, wittingly or unwittingly. I cannot tell either way, as I don't know enough. But, you do seem sincere, so it would seem to be rather unwittingly, then.

From https://www.philosophybasics.com/branch_idealism.html:

Idealism is a label which covers a number of philosophical positions with quite different tendencies and implications, including Subjective Idealism, Objective Idealism, Transcendental Idealism and Absolute Idealism, as well as several more minor variants or related concepts (see the section on Other Types of Idealism below). Other labels which are essentially equivalent to Idealism include Mentalism and Immaterialism.

Which is why I agree with same stances, and disagree wholly with other Idealist stances. It's like Dualism or Materialism having different branches that have disagree with each other. Dualism has a branch which adheres to, basically, a Materialist stance of reality: Property Dualism (https://www.philosophybasics.com/branch_dualism.html), for example.

As you mention, the interaction problem remains, but I think it is fairly simply handled by a solution where the interaction mechanism is a purposeful special case in the laws of our reality (a "brute fact" of reality established by the powers-that-be for their own purposes, similar to the laws of physics being "fine-tuned" for the existence of life) that primarily is designed in to enable physical embodiment of souls in human bodies, and where this mechanism is optimized for the requirements of the neuronal brain structure/spirit interface interaction. There is so much data that would very much be expected to exist if this hypothesis were the truth.

Below, you criticize Idealism of having contrived auxiliary hypotheses... but don't realize that the proposed interaction mechanism is basically the same thing. It is a gap that is being filled in because of a fundamental shortcoming of Dualism in explaining why and how matter and mind, two alien substances, can interact at all.

Besides... if there are powers-that-be that establish brute facts of reality... then it would imply a form of Monism to me. A true base reality out of which mind and matter are separately fashioned, a base reality that has neither distinct mental nor physical qualities, but can give rise to either.

Having a mechanism at all implies some form of Monist reality in which this "mechanism" resides, allowing communication to and fro.

Why such an elaborate charade? The Ockham's Razor Principle of Parsimony dictating against the unnecessary multiplication of explanatory complications has been found to be extremely useful in guiding science to the most likely hypotheses/theories, based on their simplicity, and choosing Idealist Monism very much seems counter to this principle. Of course, Idealism could still be true, but it would very much be an outlier in that this choice would have to ignore this core principle in scientific enquiry.

Ockham's Razor Principle is unsatisfying to me, because it is unclear to why the "simplest" explanation is the "best" explanation. Sometimes, the complex explanation is simply much more parsimonious, because it explains everything neatly and clearly. "Simpler" does not equate to "better". Often, it cannot, as reality is often full of complexities and complications that are irreducible.

I couldn't care less about what is useful to science, as I can far more about what is useful in explaining all of the different parapsychological phenomena that have been observed, directly and indirectly, alongside the usual psychological and physical stuff we know about. For me, science is a tool used for exploring ideas and concepts related to the natural world ~ but it is not something at all useful in exploring metaphysical questions, because it fundamentally cannot answer any, nevermind provide any kind of data or information or knowledge at all about the metaphysical.

Of course there is also Psi's interesting Pluralistic hypothesis of there being a multiplicity of many varyingly intersecting different Realities, not just immaterialspiritual and physical. It seems to me this is promising, even though it on the surface seems to invoke much of the apparently unnecessary complexity problem.

I perceive Dualism's interaction problem to merely be a much simpler form of the same issues that plague Pluralism. In Pluralism, as I perceive it, you simply have more than two base substances.

[Ninshub]

Good couple of posts, Valmar, I couldn't have said it - or thought it! - any better.

(Not to discredit different views or previous posts, I've only just skimmed the surface of the last few pages and will make sure to give them the close reading they deserve soon enough.)

I perceive Dualism's interaction problem to merely be a much simpler form of the same issues that plague Pluralism. In Pluralism, as I perceive it, you simply have more than two base substances.

This is true, but the question then is what exactly is a substance and how do you distinguish it from other substances? It seems this is done by looking at lines of causal interaction in the first place, which is why I wonder if the Interaction Problem is begging the question.

I'm not wedded to Pluralism, but it does seem like there are different rules/regularities/habits for different instances of paranormal phenomena. OOBEs, afterlife accounts, reincarnation, Psi, "alien" encounters, etc.

It's entirely possible varied interlocking realities that make up Pluralism are made of a singular substance, say some kind of Divine Light that makes up all things or a Divine Mind that dreams up everything. But that is arguably speculation beyond much of the evidence, though this kind of fundamental Unity is suggested by some NDEs and some Mystical Experiences...

[Ninshub]

While still largely agnostic toward "God", I'm pretty much cool with all of this as possibility, with the exception of the Single True Subject.

I guess to me if one person is carrying another, you have two separate people where one person is helping the other. But if there's only a Single True Subject, doesn't this mean both people are actually One? This seems even more stark when one person is attacking/hurting the other?

What if the STS is the awareness (the witness consciousness), as differentiated from the subjective localized minds and their contents, doesn't that take care of the problem?

Good couple of posts, Valmar, I couldn't have said it - or thought it! - any better.

(Not to discredit different views or previous posts, I've only just skimmed the surface of the last few pages and will make sure to give them the close reading they deserve soon enough.)

Cheers, Ninshub. Though, I feel like I could have made my thoughts perhaps clearer.

A case that I think challenges Dualism...and maybe Idealism:

The Mist Wolf (Stephen Schwartz)



What was this wolf in the mist? I doubt a spirit wolf is made of mist, but what does it mean for its body to be formed from mist?

An even bigger question is what the shaman Rolling Thunder [did] by taking a physical illness and putting that wrongness into a pair of steaks. Seems like a concept of illness that is some kind of Universal/Platonic/Essence transferred from a person into [a] physical medium.

I think something similar could be said about a lot of shamanic activities.

Maybe these don't fit with Dualism, but that doesn't stop me asserting that science would be a lot better off if it did accept Dualism. I know this sounds awfully pragmatic, but the value of providing a home within scientific discourse for a lot of 'paranormal' phenomena would be so valuable. People could then quibble about phenomena such as shamanic experiences.

I get the feeling there are a lot of bizarre phenomena that are hard to fit into any framework!