Dualism versus (neutral) monism, consciousness, quantum mechanics [Night Shift split]

I think the differences are pretty fundamental:

Substance Dualism asserts the existence of two fundamentally different kinds of substance: mental (mind) and physical (body), suggesting a clear division between mind and matter, where the mind is non-physical and operates independently of physical laws.
Neutral Monism proposes that both the mental and physical worlds stem from a single, fundamental, and neutral substance, which is neither purely mental nor purely physical, thus rejecting the dualistic separation and seeking a more unified understanding of mind and matter.

I personally don't believe that we, as human beings, are composed of anything beyond our physical bodies. When we are born, we are not truly conscious. Consciousness emerges during the first two years of life. I think if we had an external soul, we would exhibit higher levels of consciousness from infancy. I also believe that people waking up from a persistent vegetative state would report experiences from the spiritual world, had they possessed an external soul detached from the physical body.

We can, of course, still hope for a greater meaning of things, along with the promise of an afterlife. In my opinion, this position requires a significant amount of faith in that greater meaning.

I continue to be astonished that the intellect that has argued with me over the ins and outs of interactional Dualism versus a type of Monism espouses what boils down to a materialist world-view and philosophy as regards to the relationship of mind and matter (mind apparently being believed to be matter and/or its activities, because mind and matter are really the same "substance" in some sense (neutral monism)). In the process simply dismissing the very large boatload of empirical evidence for paranormal phenomena that establish the reality of the spiritual /psychic and probably an afterlife, and also dismissing the several excellent philosophical reasons (including the Hard Problem) for the untenability of materialist mind-matter theories.

Sure, there already is a Dualist Simulation Hypothesis.

The challenge for any Simulation Hypothesis, and arguably Idealism as its Consciousness-Only variant, is that you can provide explanations for pretty much every encountered aspect of reality.

When a theory can explain away anything one has to wonder about how good a theory it is. 

I think the best theories take evidence seriously, with some logical guidance. To me the best theories seem to be some kind of Monism, and this holds whether or not one is considering the paranormal. 

Idealism falters because it doesn't really give us a good accounting for why there is a brain, plus it seems to ignore the "for-ness" of consciousness and tries to make it substance on its own. Materialism/Physicalism fails because it's not clear what the "physical" is outside conscious perception or why we should assume consciousness is illusory+reducible.

Neutral Monism, as a broad term with many possibilities, seems to be the right track...

Yes I very much agree with the points you make here.

When we are born, we are not truly conscious. Consciousness emerges during the first two years of life.

How do you know?  Have you ever held and played with a new-born?  I have and apart from spending a lot of time asleep, they show all the signs of being conscious beings like us.  Even foetuses do.

I continue to be astonished that the intellect that has argued with me over the ins and outs of interactional Dualism versus a type of Monism espouses what boils down to a materialist world-view and philosophy as regards to the relationship of mind and matter (mind apparently being believed to be matter and/or its activities, because mind and matter are really the same "substance" in some sense (neutral monism)). In the process simply dismissing the very large boatload of empirical evidence for paranormal phenomena that establish the reality of the spiritual /psychic and probably an afterlife, and also dismissing the several excellent philosophical reasons (including the Hard Problem) for the untenability of materialist mind-matter theories.

I think you're creating a straw man argument against me here. At no point did I advocate for materialism in this thread. Perhaps I wasn't careful enough with my wording when I used 'physical body,' but it should be clear from the context of the discussion that I'm referring to neutral monism.

How do you know?  Have you ever held and played with a new-born?  I have and apart from spending a lot of time asleep, they show all the signs of being conscious beings like us.  Even foetuses do.

Consciousness at an adult level was implied here. It’s evident that the level of consciousness evolves during the first years of life.

I think you're creating a straw man argument against me here. At no point did I advocate for materialism in this thread. Perhaps I wasn't careful enough with my wording when I used 'physical body,' but it should be clear from the context of the discussion that I'm referring to neutral monism.

But it is the implications. I simply took you at your words: "I personally don't believe that we, as human beings, are composed of anything beyond our physical bodies." The implication seems to be clear - this is saying that when the physical body is destroyed, so is the person. Is it not true then that due to neutral monism you reject all notions of a distinct separate soul, spirit, and of an afterlife separate from the physical body (as do materialists), and therefore must reject all paranormal evidence of their existence? Even if the view is actually some sort of dual-aspect neutral monism, the mind and the physical brain would still supposedly be inseparable, being at base one substance with two aspects, the inseparability requirement contradicting a boatload of paranormal evidence. And if the mind/matter substance is organized in such a way that mind phenomena are always in "lock-step" with particular matter (i.e. brain) states (as seems to be the case from conventional neurophysiological studies), then does not the neutral monist view reduce down to a kind of materialist view?

ESP would still entail causal continuity? For something to be perceived it must interact with the one perceiving.

Indeed... though in this case, the mind of the NDEr is in a higher state, whatever that properly entails, than the material world it is perceiving, but it appears from the majority of NDEs, the ones I'm aware of at least, that the NDEr is unable to causally influence the physical in any meaningful degree while out-of-body. Thus being able to pass through walls, on odd occasionally being seemingly able read people's thoughts and emotions, teleport by thought and intention alone.

There seem to be rules in place that prevent us from having much, if any, influence on the physical while not incarnate in a physical form.

To my knowledge, in all the research into clairvoyance and remote viewing and NDE OBE viewing there has been no hint of any detectable physical interaction with the physical scene. The NDEr can apparently pass through walls with absolute ease and no obstruction or interference from this solid matter. It seems that the ESP is directly sensing the physical configuration in space and time but without bouncing something off and processing the reflected bits to get an image.

At least some OBE's report that the non-physical body can have difficulty passing through a barrier - say a wall. That does suggest some interaction with the physical scene. Also there are a number of OBE reports in which a person in an OBE reports meeting someone, and is seen back. There is a fascinating case where a man on a boat in a storm was visited by his wife who was having an OBE. The man was resting in a bunk bed with another passenger, who commented on the occurrence in the morning!

The man's wife had also recorded the incident before her husband got home.

We could do with an AI trained on all the OBE NDE reports - then all the evidence would be easily searchable!

David

The whole conversation here completely disregards all the explicit evidence for Dualism. For example:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Journey-Souls-S...001MTENOC/

All the work of Stevenson (a psychiatrist, who was initially sceptical of the phenomenon) and Tucker seeking out evidence of reincarnation.

The evidence of Mediums, particularly those mediums tested by Julie Beischel using a multiply blinded protocol.....

Some people trained in science cannot stand the thought of Dualism. I suppose I was the same. I just got converted by the evidence over many years.

Yes all that can be explained away by Idealism, but when someone comes along with some reliable results that need the extra complexity (and vagueness) of Idealism, I'd rather stick with Dualism!

David

The whole conversation here completely disregards all the explicit evidence for Dualism. For example:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Journey-Souls-S...001MTENOC/

All the work of Stevenson (a psychiatrist, who was initially sceptical of the phenomenon) and Tucker seeking out evidence of reincarnation.

The evidence of Mediums, particularly those mediums tested by Julie Beischel using a multiply blinded protocol.....

Some people trained in science cannot stand the thought of Dualism. I suppose I was the same. I just got converted by the evidence over many years.

Yes all that can be explained away by Idealism, but when someone comes along with some reliable results that need the extra complexity (and vagueness) of Idealism, I'd rather stick with Dualism!

David

I nearly completely agree, except for your use of Michael Newton's Journey of Souls as an example of the evidence. I think most of these reports of "between lives" existence and choice-making obtained under light hypnosis are probably confabulations of various sorts under the influence of both self-suggestion and suggestions from the therapist.