Physicalism Redux

That is what I would consider a truly extensionless Monad. I'm not sure whether it would be inert in casual efficacy, but might not be perceivable... though, then again, I am uncertain what a Monad would be with everything temporary stripped away. Maybe it could be perceived by other Monads, but be... dormant or still or something.

A field is perhaps a form, as it has extension and is limited in scope? Fields don't really have points of origin, as far as I am aware ~ maybe physical fields do, but with mental fields, the origin seems to encompass all of it. As for being omni-extended across all of reality... it would cease to be a perceivable field, and perhaps no longer a field at all. It would just be one with all of reality, perhaps?

Well... minds do have structures within them. Even we take our own mind for examples. It has structures, though they are entirely unlike physical structures in quality. As for souls ~ I guess they choose their structures and forms, according to their whims and interests, probably able to choose any structures or forms they desire.

As for being everywhere... well... maybe nowhere in particular? But I'm not sure whether that makes it any clearer... actually, it would require knowing more about the nature of the more fundamental reality, spiritual or otherwise.

I think a Monad is still indivisible ~ it can just do anything within itself that it wishes, while simply being the space within which it can all happen. A sort of... Pluralism within the Monism that is the Monad / Soul / Mind, where everything is just composed of that Monad's essence.

We experience an apparently external world that appears extended, so we perhaps project those qualities on the perceived external world?

So it would seem... maybe we have an intuitive understanding that there is something incomprehensibly vast and unknowable that simply appears infinite, so we end up all just believing in it in one sense or another?

That makes sense.

Ah... sounds similar to Kant's noumena, which in turn sound rather similar to Jung's Archetypes and Plato's Forms. Which does seem to imply that despite the names we give to these primal, unknowable forces, they have an existence beyond our comprehension. We just know of them indirectly. Perhaps it is the stuff of the Designers / Souls / Seities / etc. Stuff that is at the very basis of Creation itself that is simply far too rich in detail and potential to even begin to comprehend. They would appear also infinite ~ to manifest certain potential? In the sense that the incarnate mind, the Jungian psyche, can have near infinite variation, but still follows very clear themes and definitions.

Worth a read at some point. Cheers.

I think a Monad that perceives has to have active qualities, as any perception in some sense is reaching out to grasp that which is beyond itself. And to be perceived it has to be able to accept perception, since to be perceived is to accept some qualities that mark anything as being perceived are communicated to the perceiver.

This makes it difficult to think that a Monad is ever isolated, or at least to me it does.

I am also not sure if fields can be said to have a form. Perhaps if they are limited in size, but it’s not clear Psi has those limits and mystics who claim to achieve unity with Everything definitely seem to believe their embodiment was - at least temporarily - infinite.

Now if we are both Cosmically Immense, Infinitely Sized Souls….can we maintain our distinction? I think this is where the qualities of being a Person come in, because our perception and our focus of attention will shift and differ. Perhaps this may be why such vast entities would even seek out embodiment, in order to individuate?

For me Structure means some kind of measurable arrangement. So I don’t think myself as a Mind has any parts that can be arrange[d]. I mean my love is not the same as my fear, but I don’t think there is a Fear Gear or Love Web inside me? There’s no real way to cut out Love or Fear from my Person in the way you can easily identi[f]y and remove a piece of a computer?

I think our attention can be no Where in particular, but this suggests that we are Everywhere? I agree the truth of this probably requires us to no longer be embodied in this world with these biological bodies.

I think a Person is indivisible, but it is difficult to reconcile the Person with the extended world. Again the easiest “out” seems to suggest the world just *is* experiential through and through…though it’s not clear this answers the question of whether Persons have to be embodied. All to say it’s not clear Idealism - or Phenomenalism - offer clarity on whether it makes sense for there to be disembodied Minds [or if Persons have to embodied in some way].

I like the idea of there being a connection between Kantian Noumena, Jungian Archetypes, and Platonic Forms…If I understand you the idea here is that there are aspects, perhaps even entities, whose reality we need to make sense of how the world is but can only conceive these transcendent aspects of reality by way of how a limited part of them impinges on our experience?

And you are also suggesting that we are perhaps these entities ourselves?

[Laird]

So if I understand this correctly, the mind is objective and the experiences, thoughts, and so on it has are subjective.

And by objective - to put it in as metaphysically neutral terms as possible - we mean there is agreement about what is experienced, and additionally there’s some expectation of causality - that the objective can also produce new experiences that will also be part of the consensus.

So then what is subjective is what is not agreed upon by the consensus & cannot directly produce these new experiences within the consensus. 

That's in the ballpark, but here's how I prefer to frame it in the context of this exchange:

The "subjective" is that which exists only in experience, or, in other words, that which exists only as experienced (and by "in" I of course don't mean to imply extension via inner and outer parts; it's just the most apt preposition to use here).

The "objective" is that which exists regardless of whether or not anybody is experiencing it (so, not necessarily entailing agreement about it, except perhaps ideally, for "perfect" observers, and also not necessarily even possible to experience nor necessarily causally efficacious - consider, for example, a parallel universe in a multiverse but without conscious entities within that parallel universe).

So, yes, the mind is objective.

Also, to clarify - although at the risk of confusion! - experience has both subjective and objective senses. The subjective sense is that of, e.g., the imagined triangle and cube as (being) imagined; the smell of the incense as (being) smelt; etc. The objective sense is that according to which the experiencer is experiencing whatever (s)he is experiencing (the triangle; the cube; the smell of the incense; etc) regardless of anybody else's experience (of that experiencer's experience).

It's in the objective (outer) sense - absent its subjectivity; absent its interiority - that experience can't be smelt and doesn't have extension.

It's strangely difficult to express all of this even though it's very clear to me conceptually. I don't think it's particularly profound - it even seems mundane - which is why it's additionally perplexing that it does seem to be so challenging to convey to you. I hope that it makes sense at last.

I would agree that you cannot smell my experience of smell….

Good. Do you see that by the same sort of thinking, just as experience can't be smelt, experience can't be extended?

but I am not sure this means that the smell of incense is not within my experience.

Hmm. I'm not saying that it isn't though. The smell of incense is within your subjective experience.

Maybe, though, by "within" your experience you mean something different, sort of like Rupert Sheldrake's idea that vision, for example, is not solely receptive but also directed outwards, perhaps in a field-like manner; you might be suggesting that in a similar sense, the smell of the incense "out there" is really contained within your outwardly-directed field of smell which encompasses the "out there" odorous world.

Perhaps what is objective is - to put it in phenomenologist terms - the possibility to provide the experience I have when one smells incense?

Yes, that seems like a fair alternative way to define objectivity.

I think a Monad that perceives has to have active qualities, as any perception in some sense is reaching out to grasp that which is beyond itself.

@Valmar - Actually I guess you can perceive that which is thought of as "part" of your Self. Even if we separate the body from the Experiencer, we would probably at least include their capacity for perception...you can "perceive" your sense of sight by knowing that you see maybe?

It does seem to get quite tricky when we start getting into these hypothetical scenarios involving meta-cognition, possibilities of Cosmic Immensity, etc...