UndercoverElephant
Pachyderm of a Thousand Faces
- Joined
- Jan 17, 2002
- Messages
- 9,058
If anyone wants an overview of the history and current state of neutral monism go here:
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/neutral-monism/
It is a historically diverse position, my own version is a new version of it, but it holds true to the basic tenets of the position.
COPYRIGHT GEOFF. Please do not re-use this material. It does not belong to the JREF either.
Wasp and anyone else interested,
My own position is the result of long process of elimination of other positions and of inductive evidence from a wide variety of sources, most of them sciences. It also, unlike all of the other answers, attempts to explain why there is something instead of nothing. Please try to "unthink" your materialist assumptions when trying to understand my position.
I am asking nobody to just “accept” this. I am explaining this only because I want people to have a better idea where I am coming from. I am not attempting to “prove” it is the “correct answer”. If anyone responds with “Prove it!” or “You still haven’t given us any reason to disbelieve materialism!” then I’m not going to reply – we already have another thread for those objections. I will answer further questions about this system. I am in a tiny minority in that I hold to a system like this one. It is not for people with a strong herding instinct. It supplied for those who are interested only. If anyone actually chose to adopt it, then it would be a pleasant surprise for me. I am not lifegazer. I do not want everyone to believe I have solved the answers to life, the universe, and everything.
The core of neutral monism is a claim that reality is unitary and that mind and matter are manifestations of the unified system, leaving me to specifiy
a) the nature of the neutral entities
b) the relationship between the neutral entities and "mind"
c) the relationship between the neutral entities and "matter"
Here goes:
a) The nature of the neutral entities.
The neutral entities are closely related to mathematical entities with the crucial difference that Zero has been replaced with something that isn't merely nothing. The result is what I am going to call 0-mathematics. It is specified in detail here :
http://everythingforever.com/st_math.htm
Zero is the ultimate neutral entity. It is the foundation of this system. From this zero, in perfectly symmetrical fashion, the whole of mathematics hangs off, and when taken together all of these mathematical entities also cancel out to Zero. As a result, the entire system is neutral. When the “logical grinder” has finished grinding, all that is left is Zero, literally leaving nothing to explain. Somewhere in the neutral realm of 0-math there is an 0-math entity which IS the neutral entity underlying our own reality. NOTE: This is very different to the sort of mathematisation Husserl is talking about. Firstly, the entity I am describing is not directly mappable onto the physical universe – although some future branch of QM or new branch of physics could conceivably describe it one day. Secondly I am openly declaring that this 0-math structure actually IS the neutral entity in question.
As far as our reality goes, this neutral entity is all which exists. Both mind and matter can be specified in terms of it, but it is neither mental nor is it physical.
b) What “mind” is.
Whilst the parts of the 0-math neutral entity (0MNE) do not directly correspond to physical reality, they do indirectly correspond. In other words, there are parts of the 0MNE which correspond to physical brains and there are parts of the 0MNE which correspond to other parts of physical reality. There are also internal causal relationships between those different parts i.e. the exact state of the part which corresponds to physical brains is partially determined by the state of other parts of the 0MNE via normal empirical causation. What we call “mind” is the result of the relationship between Zero and the part of the 0MNE which corresponds to a brain.
c) What “matter” is.
Physical things have caused a lot of confusion. According to this system, what we usually call “physical things” are a subset of mental things. In other words, they appear in “minds” as defined above. They are components of mental experiences or minds. However, since the content of “minds” is causally dependent on other parts of the 0MNE, these “physical things” are also related to things outside of minds – just NOT “Physical things outside of minds”. Instead they are “neutral things outside of minds”.
d) What idealism gets wrong.
Idealism is wrong because the only part of the system it recognises is the Zero (which it sees at the subject or the experiencer) and the part of the 0MNE corresponding to a brain. It denies the existence of the other non-brain parts of the 0MNE. Since these both exist, and causally determine the state of the brain-part of the 0MNE, idealism is wrong. It is also quite correct to say that there are things which are mind-independent. Now, the idealist may argue that there has to be a relationship between the Zero and the non-brain parts of the 0MNE and they may well argue that this is “mental” in the sense that it corresponds to “the mind of God”. This is a misuse of the term “mental”. There may well have to be such a relationship, but it is entirely mistaken to call it “mental”, and it is a mistake to say that there is nothing which exists independently of the relationship I have defined as “mind”, and it may be a mistake to refer to "the mind of God" at all. There is indeed a mind-independent reality. It just isn’t physical.
e) What materialism gets wrong.
Materialism makes two mistakes. Firstly, it misidentifies the “physical representations” of a mind-independent reality for the neutral mind-independent reality itself. What we experience as “physical” are components of the part of the 0MNE which corresponds to a brain. They are not, and cannot possibly be, self-existing "physical" things. In this sense, idealism is correct. Materialists seem to think that the ultimate existents are the same as these “physical” things we experience and that leads to all of their problems. They truly have confused the map with territory. Secondly, materialism totally ignores the role of the subject or the Zero.
f) What dualism gets wrong.
Dualism ignores both the 0MNE and the subject. As a result it ends up claiming that instead of mind and matter being two different components of a single neutral system they are two different realms which exist independently.
I hope now that people will at least now be able to ask me questions about this, and will stop attributing to me things which I do not believe and have not claimed.
“Proving” this is the best system would require me to have already written the book I intend to write when I have finished my studies. Exercises like this are partly to learn about the main misunderstandings and objections that people will raise, so I can anticipate them and work out the best responses. So can ask that people try to be constructive in their criticism? This is a work in progress.
Geoff
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/neutral-monism/
It is a historically diverse position, my own version is a new version of it, but it holds true to the basic tenets of the position.
COPYRIGHT GEOFF. Please do not re-use this material. It does not belong to the JREF either.
Wasp and anyone else interested,
My own position is the result of long process of elimination of other positions and of inductive evidence from a wide variety of sources, most of them sciences. It also, unlike all of the other answers, attempts to explain why there is something instead of nothing. Please try to "unthink" your materialist assumptions when trying to understand my position.
I am asking nobody to just “accept” this. I am explaining this only because I want people to have a better idea where I am coming from. I am not attempting to “prove” it is the “correct answer”. If anyone responds with “Prove it!” or “You still haven’t given us any reason to disbelieve materialism!” then I’m not going to reply – we already have another thread for those objections. I will answer further questions about this system. I am in a tiny minority in that I hold to a system like this one. It is not for people with a strong herding instinct. It supplied for those who are interested only. If anyone actually chose to adopt it, then it would be a pleasant surprise for me. I am not lifegazer. I do not want everyone to believe I have solved the answers to life, the universe, and everything.
The core of neutral monism is a claim that reality is unitary and that mind and matter are manifestations of the unified system, leaving me to specifiy
a) the nature of the neutral entities
b) the relationship between the neutral entities and "mind"
c) the relationship between the neutral entities and "matter"
Here goes:
a) The nature of the neutral entities.
The neutral entities are closely related to mathematical entities with the crucial difference that Zero has been replaced with something that isn't merely nothing. The result is what I am going to call 0-mathematics. It is specified in detail here :
http://everythingforever.com/st_math.htm
Zero is the ultimate neutral entity. It is the foundation of this system. From this zero, in perfectly symmetrical fashion, the whole of mathematics hangs off, and when taken together all of these mathematical entities also cancel out to Zero. As a result, the entire system is neutral. When the “logical grinder” has finished grinding, all that is left is Zero, literally leaving nothing to explain. Somewhere in the neutral realm of 0-math there is an 0-math entity which IS the neutral entity underlying our own reality. NOTE: This is very different to the sort of mathematisation Husserl is talking about. Firstly, the entity I am describing is not directly mappable onto the physical universe – although some future branch of QM or new branch of physics could conceivably describe it one day. Secondly I am openly declaring that this 0-math structure actually IS the neutral entity in question.
As far as our reality goes, this neutral entity is all which exists. Both mind and matter can be specified in terms of it, but it is neither mental nor is it physical.
b) What “mind” is.
Whilst the parts of the 0-math neutral entity (0MNE) do not directly correspond to physical reality, they do indirectly correspond. In other words, there are parts of the 0MNE which correspond to physical brains and there are parts of the 0MNE which correspond to other parts of physical reality. There are also internal causal relationships between those different parts i.e. the exact state of the part which corresponds to physical brains is partially determined by the state of other parts of the 0MNE via normal empirical causation. What we call “mind” is the result of the relationship between Zero and the part of the 0MNE which corresponds to a brain.
c) What “matter” is.
Physical things have caused a lot of confusion. According to this system, what we usually call “physical things” are a subset of mental things. In other words, they appear in “minds” as defined above. They are components of mental experiences or minds. However, since the content of “minds” is causally dependent on other parts of the 0MNE, these “physical things” are also related to things outside of minds – just NOT “Physical things outside of minds”. Instead they are “neutral things outside of minds”.
d) What idealism gets wrong.
Idealism is wrong because the only part of the system it recognises is the Zero (which it sees at the subject or the experiencer) and the part of the 0MNE corresponding to a brain. It denies the existence of the other non-brain parts of the 0MNE. Since these both exist, and causally determine the state of the brain-part of the 0MNE, idealism is wrong. It is also quite correct to say that there are things which are mind-independent. Now, the idealist may argue that there has to be a relationship between the Zero and the non-brain parts of the 0MNE and they may well argue that this is “mental” in the sense that it corresponds to “the mind of God”. This is a misuse of the term “mental”. There may well have to be such a relationship, but it is entirely mistaken to call it “mental”, and it is a mistake to say that there is nothing which exists independently of the relationship I have defined as “mind”, and it may be a mistake to refer to "the mind of God" at all. There is indeed a mind-independent reality. It just isn’t physical.
e) What materialism gets wrong.
Materialism makes two mistakes. Firstly, it misidentifies the “physical representations” of a mind-independent reality for the neutral mind-independent reality itself. What we experience as “physical” are components of the part of the 0MNE which corresponds to a brain. They are not, and cannot possibly be, self-existing "physical" things. In this sense, idealism is correct. Materialists seem to think that the ultimate existents are the same as these “physical” things we experience and that leads to all of their problems. They truly have confused the map with territory. Secondly, materialism totally ignores the role of the subject or the Zero.
f) What dualism gets wrong.
Dualism ignores both the 0MNE and the subject. As a result it ends up claiming that instead of mind and matter being two different components of a single neutral system they are two different realms which exist independently.
I hope now that people will at least now be able to ask me questions about this, and will stop attributing to me things which I do not believe and have not claimed.
“Proving” this is the best system would require me to have already written the book I intend to write when I have finished my studies. Exercises like this are partly to learn about the main misunderstandings and objections that people will raise, so I can anticipate them and work out the best responses. So can ask that people try to be constructive in their criticism? This is a work in progress.
Geoff
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