I don't agree with your argument that God could create two identical rocks. In physical terms, two distinct rocks cannot have the same spatiotemporal location and still be identical in all their properties; God cannot do this any more than he can create a square which is both white and black all over. Either he creates two (otherwise identical) rocks with distinct locations, or one rock with single location.

One more distinction. This time between intrinsic properties and extrinsic properties (with thanks to Molnar for the definitions):

Df. 1. F is an intrinsic property of a iff a's having the property F is ontologically independent of the existence, and of the non-existence, of any contingent b such that a is wholly distinct from b; and a's not having the property F is ontologically independent of the existence, and of the non-existence, of any contingent b such that it is wholly distinct from b.

Df. 2. F is an extrinsic property of a iff F is a property of a and F is not an intrinsic property of a.

Most extrinsic properties are relations with n-adicities such that n ≥ 2.

Spatial relations are extrinsic properties. I think, however, that what's needed to block the case of the two minds is an Identity of Indiscernibles restricted to intrinsic properties. (We can't appeal to spatial relations with non-spatial minds.) The rock argument does seem to be a counterexample to an Identity of Indiscernibles restricted to intrinsic properties.

I don't see why a blind person would necessarily object to phenomenalism, if phenomena are understood to include auditory phenomena, tactile phenomena, etc.

Well, given that our visual experiences are just constructions out of sense impressions (themselves grounded in our minds), I think it's odd that there are blind men.

I also think this response just pushes the problem back a step. For example, it's plausible that there are deaf, blind men—some war veterans, perhaps. If there are deaf, blind men, the problem reoccurs. (I have no doubt that you can come up with some phenomenalist explanation of why there are deaf, blind men. I think, however, that any such explanation is going to be more contrived, and possibly ambiguous, than the corresponding direct realist explanation.)

Hi Incessable, I'm very happy to have you here!

Incessable wrote:

I think we should be careful about language like "the mind causes the experience". It is ambiguous in whether "the mind" refers to all minds collectively (including God), or whether "the mind" refers to the mind immediately having a specific experience. If you mean the latter, that is not what I believe. Suppose I look out the window and see a tree; I would not say that my mind alone is the cause of the experiences of the tree. My experiences of the tree are in part caused by the existence of the pattern-in-the-experiences-of-minds which the tree is, and that pattern in experience does not depend on my individual mind to exist, since it is present in many minds other than my own, and would still be present in other minds even if I had never existed; they are also in part caused by my own mind, since I willed to look out the window (rather than looking elsewhere). However, that analysis is not that different from a non-idealist analysis, since in either case my experiences are caused by the combination of something outside my own mind combined with the power of my will to choose among potential objects of perception.

What kind of causal role does the mind play in causing the tree? You've made a distinction as how the [caused] is a mere experience. Now this is where things a bit rougher for me, you say it is a mere experience-of-mind. What is the mind exactly causing? An experience. You then adhere to some sort of a contrastive explanation, but I'm unsure what you have in mind there. Me willing to see out of the window, under a causal analysis simply means me exercising a power of my agency. This causation is contingent, not necessary, and self-sourced within the agent. It is there, because it is a power of the human substance. A rock cannot move by itself, if it moves, something other than itself moves it, it cannot exercise this power because its substance-hood is deficient for such an act which is restricted by its form.

The analysis stops for me when you say they would exist even if there are no minds, if so, how and where? What a surprise that you're talking about this and somehow, I've just managed to properly understand the subtle differences between Mere-Conservationism and Concurrentism (if I haven't, I expect Thomists and Scholastics to interject and correct me asap on the other thread)!

What kind of division of labor do you have in mind, in the mind causing an experience, rather than a non-reductive reality? I also want you to tell me whether or not you think that objects can exist independent of our minds [not God's].

Incessable wrote:

In part yes. My principal motivation for rejecting materialism, is materialism implies that an afterlife is very unlikely, but I am convinced there is one. But, given rejection of materialism, the principal choice remaining is between dualism and idealism, and of the two, I have become convinced that idealism is the simpler option. My other reason, is that I used to be a reductionist materialist, and I feel that from there it is a shorter distance to idealism than to dualism.

Your former proposition has my sympathies and I understand your concerns. Arguments like Leibniz Mill in tandem with St. Augustine's argument for the immateriality of the mind (which I want to be sympathetic towards), have managed to convince me (since forever) that materialism cannot properly account for the mind. John West has said the necessary things about gross tonnage and parsimony, you should check this thread out.

Incessable wrote:

I'm sorry I don't quite follow your point. Are you saying that, unlike God's mind, our minds are obviously not the sort that could cause all their experiences? I don't claim our individual minds are like that at all; take any of my waking experiences, and examine the causal chains which lead to it, the vast majority of the causation will lie outside my mind.

I think my point was that objects can exist independently of our minds, but they cannot exist independent of the mind of God, since he is the cause of all being(s). If it is true, that objects exist independent of our minds, and thus rest upon an Act of Will of the Prime Mover, then I do not see what your position saying, unless it properly divides the division of labor between objects and the mind that which cause an 'experience.' For if you do admit that our minds do not cause the world, even if the cause the experience, it is God's mind that causes the objects of our experience, with the help of our minds functioning as a cause, under the substance-hood of Humanity. This then becomes some form of indirect realism, but I'll let you speak before I come to conclusions!

Last edited by Dennis (3/05/2016 5:20 am)

Yeah, no worries! I think you and I are very much in agreement, you highlight the points I wanted to (and did), analytically!

Last edited by Dennis (3/05/2016 5:28 am)

dingodile wrote:

I think the problem of interaction itself has many forms, some of which are difficult to state as arguments. Some versions of it presuppose the principle of causal closure of the physical (CCP). I think it's question-begging to presuppose CCP in an argument against dualism, since (some versions of) dualism entail that CCP is false. Do you have a version of the problem of interaction that doesn't presuppose CCP?

To argue against interaction, I don't presume CCP is true. I even doubt that CCP is in fact true. 

Let us consider reductionist materialism, reductionist idealism, and substance dualism. Let us ignore for the time being other options such as neutral monism or hylemorphic dualism.

Substance dualism needs to provide an answer to the question "how do mind and matter interact?"

Likewise, reductionist materialism needs to provide an answer to the question "how is mind reduced to matter?"

And reductionist idealism needs to provide an answer to the question "how is matter reduced to mind?"

Interactions between material entities require an explanation: the natural sciences give us a quite vast account of them.

Interactions between mental entities require an explanation: we can find such explanations through introspection and through disciplines such as psychology and logic.

Both reductionist materialism and reductionist idealism can give accounts of how their respective reductions take place. These accounts are incomplete, and we can dispute them, but in both cases at least some of the required detail exists.

I would argue that all three theories (reductionist idealism, materialist idealism, and substance dualism) need to explain certain things. However, I would argue that the things that substance dualism needs to explain (principally interaction), the available explanations are much more lacking than those for the monist theories. If I am correct in that judgement, that would give us a reason to prefer the monist theories to substance dualism.

Some substance dualists have provided suggestions as to how interaction might take place. Descartes thought it took place in the pineal gland, although I think that view has few or no defenders today, and I doubt even Descartes had sufficient evidence to justify believing it. More recently, we have the Penrose-Hameroff theory that interaction takes place due to quantum processes in neuronal microtubules. Against this theory, we can note that most neuroscientists and quantum physicists reject it, and that it relies on many unproven scientific hypothesises for which we presently lack evidence. I also suspect that not only is it a small minority view among neuroscientists and quantum physicists, that it is also a small minority view among contemporary dualists. None of that proves it false, but I don't think we have particularly good reasons to believe it is true.

So, insofar as any specific suggestions have been given as to how interaction takes place, there are a lot of reasons to doubt those specific suggestions. My impression is that the majority of substance dualists don't subscribe to any of those specific suggestions, but simply say "It happens, we don't know how, maybe one day we will".

Given all of this, I feel that the explanatory gap faced by substance dualism is bigger than that faced by reductionist monism. (That's my evaluation of the evidence; I could be wrong in that evaluation.) If I am right about that, I think that gives me a good reason to prefer reductionist monism to substance dualism.

If you asked the average reductionist monist "How does the reduction take place?" I believe you'd get a more detailed answer than if you asked the average substance dualist "How does interaction take place?". That suggests that reductionist monism answers its inherent explanatory demands better than substance dualism does

John West wrote:

Sorry for another long reply. They should start to shorten after this.

No worries John! I'm afraid my verbosity might equal and even exceed yours

John West wrote:

D. C. Williams has an interesting discussion of the distinction between economy of gross tonnage and true logical economy in Realism as an Inductive Hypothesis. Since parsimony plays an important role in your argument and discussions of phenomenalism generally, I hope you don't mind if I quote from it:

I think most people will agree that the some form of the principle of parsimony is valid. If theory A is sufficiently simpler than theory B (for some value of "simpler"), then that is a good reason to prefer theory A to theory B. The agreement starts to break down when we ask what exactly "simpler" means, and different people can give different answers, and it is unclear how we should even begin to resolve such disputes.

I see here an analogy between rationality and ethics: just about everyone agrees that it is unethical to kill other human beings without sufficient justification – however, beyond the near universal agreement on the general principle there is a huge amount of disagreement about what constitutes a "human being" (does a 10 week old foetus count?) and what constitutes "sufficient justification" (capital punishment? war? euthanasia? what are the acceptable limits of self-defence?) I would not say that these disputes are unsolvable, or that there is no objective truth against which they can be judged, but they are very difficult to resolve, and one can be convinced there is objective truth yet be rather unsure of whose account of it is correct or how we can even determine whose account is correct.

So, if a monist sees the principle of parsimony as arguing against dualism, and the dualist does not see it in the same way, it is possible they are just using different versions of the principle of parsimony, and we lack an obvious way to determine whose version of the principle is correct. Maybe they had different versions of the principle to begin with, and that has led to their respective metaphysical views; maybe one or both sides have gone looking for whichever version of the principle of parsimony best supports their metaphysical position.

First, true logical economy consists in the assumption of as few independent principles as possible.

I agree that is a valid form of the principle of parsimony, although I'm not convinced it exhausts the principle of parsimony. Nonetheless, one could argue that substance dualism assumes more "indepedent principles" than monism, since arguably two fundamental types of existents (matter and mind) is more than one fundamental type of existent (matter or mind). I would suggest that substance dualism has roughly five independent principles: the existence of mind; the existence of matter; the laws which govern the operations of mind; the laws which govern the operations of matter; the laws which govern the interactions of mind and matter. Whereas, I would count in the same way three independent principles in reductionist monism: the existence of the fundamental substance; the laws which govern the operations of the fundamental substance; the laws which govern the reduction of the derivative substance to the fundamental substance. (Laws which govern the operations of the derivative substance are not an independent principle, since they should be inferable from the laws that govern the fundamental substance and the laws that govern reduction; likewise, laws which govern the interaction of the fundamental and derivative substance are not an independent principle, since reduction reduces fundamental-derivative interaction to fundamental-fundamental interaction, and we've already counted for both the reduction and the fundamental-fundamental interaction.)

One problem with executing this standard is that there is a lack of clear definition of what is an "independent principle", so you might count more or less independent principles in a theory than I do. If we could turn a theory into a formal logical system, we could count the number of independent axioms; but I doubt most metaphysical theories are amenable to being formalised in that way.

Second, logical economy therefore does not consist in assuming as small a quantity of matter as possible. Ockham's principle forbids us to multiply, not masses of stuff, not gross tonnage, but laws, formal elements, defining characters. It is not more economical, logically, to assume the operation of Aaron's rod than to assume the operation of an avalanche or a solar cataclysm, in spite of the immensely greater heft of the latter.

I would argue that multiplying types is worse than multiplying tokens, and multiplying irreducible types is worse than multiplying reducible types. 

[1]Try finding a genuine metaphysical problem (one that isn't just aesthetic preference) with having a few thousand more atoms in the universe to see why.

I would say that the principle of parsimony requires us, ceteris paribus, to prefer theory A to theory B when theory A is significantly simpler than theory B; it does not apply if theory A is only ever so slightly simpler than theory B. A few thousand atoms less might be ever so slightly simpler, but it is certainly not significantly simpler. A googol (10^100) atoms less would be very significantly simpler