You have to answer this question, because if you don't, then the only thing you're saying is: 'everything is what everything is' — csalisbury
Then the question is: how do we understand what [the other thing] is? — csalisbury
Now you have to explain how matter produces an understanding of something other than matter. — csalisbury
You've already assumed dualism is the case in the response to the claim that "everything is matter, or mind". By asking, "as opposed to what?" you've already taken the position that dualism is the case.If you say that everything is matter
Someone can ask: As opposed to what?
You have to answer this question, because if you don't, then the only thing you're saying is: 'everything is what everything is'
But once you do answer - 'Matter as opposed to [the other thing]'
Then the question is: how do we understand what [the other thing] is? — csalisbury
We still need to figure out how matter understands matter though. And since "understanding" is not matter, that seems quite a tricky problem in itself. — Inis
Now you have to explain how matter produces an understanding of something other than matter. — csalisbury
But once you do answer - 'Matter as opposed to [the other thing]'
Then the question is: how do we understand what [the other thing] is? — csalisbury
In both cases, the monistic idea can only be precipitated out of a non-monistic stew. The intent of the monist is always to correct an error, to show how everything is actually one. But that intent can only arise from a situation in which there is, at minimum, a duality. — csalisbury
III. By substance, I mean that which is in itself, and is conceived through itself: in other words, that of which a conception can be formed independently of any other conception.
IV. By attribute, I mean that which the intellect perceives as constituting the essence of substance.
V. By mode, I mean the modifications[1] of substance, or that which exists in, and is conceived through, something other than itself. — Spinoza, Ethics
PROP. III. Things which have nothing in common cannot be one the cause of the other.
Proof.—If they have nothing in common, it follows that one cannot be apprehended by means of the other (Ax. v.), and, therefore, one cannot be the cause of the other (Ax. iv.). Q.E.D.
Even if you try to fold the duality back into oneness, the monist can't account for the event of the fall itself. The 'illusion' of a duality would constitute its own ontological realm.
All of which is to say: Monism is always a moralistic or aesthetic corrective to a dualism or pluralism it finds itself in. It can't reflect reality. It always has to be a cognitive project driven by some sort of need. — csalisbury
However, thoughts and actions, matter and mind do relate, eg through desires and technology, so are of the same domain because relations obtain of the entities within them. Projecting this 'blending of attributes' back to substance offers the conception that substance is that which is characterised by relational closure tout court. This is close to a traditional monism, having one domain of interaction, when there is but one closed set of interacting entities; when there is one domain of interaction. — fdrake
The confusion arises when considering the domain of conception as different from what it concerns, positing a 'here' and a 'there'; isolated domains; which nevertheless, and now problematically, interact. — fdrake
How they interact is a different question from whether they interact. Noticing such an interaction evinces that they indeed do. — fdrake
I would answer the question with a question; does it make sense to consider two things as being entirely distinct and non-related when they interact? I have a craving for ice cream. This expresses a relation between me and ice cream; my desire isn't extended or capable of temperature except in a metaphorical sense, it isn't the motion of a body nor is it at rest, nevertheless if I were to indulge and satisfy my desire, I'd eat the ice cream and satisfy my desire. It makes as much sense to separate desire and its objects through some prior stratification of being as it does to separate my mouth, the ice cream, and its taste.
Why should we grant logical priority to an intuition of separation when we can establish they are not separate through our acts? — fdrake
If you say that everything is matter
Someone can ask: As opposed to what?
You have to answer this question, because if you don't, then the only thing you're saying is: 'everything is what everything is'
But once you do answer - 'Matter as opposed to [the other thing]'
Then the question is: how do we understand what [the other thing] is?
Now you have to explain how matter produces an understanding of something other than matter.
*****
If you say that everything is Mind
Someone can ask: As opposed to what?
You have to answer this question, because if you don't, then the only thing you're saying is: 'everything is what everything is'
But once you do answer - 'Mind as opposed to [the other thing]'
Then the question is: how do we understand what [the other thing] is?
Now you have to explain how mind produces an understanding of something other than mind. — csalisbury
The ice cream has a molecular structure- explained through chemistry. Desires have perhaps a molecular counterpart (interactions of the brain), but it would be odd to say, "my desires are molecular" (other than trivially/metaphorically). Rather, your desires have a psychological aspect, that is to say, it is explained through psychology rather than chemistry. It is these type of distinctions that the interactions of the psychology on the material that you are describing, do not answer simply because of its interaction. — schopenhauer1
Being the subject of a different set of investigation techniques doesn't say anything about the constitution of what's considered. Calculus doesn't have to overlap with anatomy, and on this basis we should not conclude that the entities of mathematics aren't related to those anatomy studies. How surprising it is that the impact of a fall has effects on the body, and that falling often leads to pain. Surely pain, falling and bodies are made of different substances, then. Philosophy should really deal with the interaction problem of falling down and the pain of grazing knees. — fdrake
It was just an example, but how it is that all material is mental or all mental is material is the hard question. — schopenhauer1
Really though, I think stratifications of being don't neatly track stratifications of substance, precisely because we end up with things like emergence and multilayer dependence of things which are supposed to have an independent nature. — fdrake
Nature is more aligned with interdependence and transformation acting over all and intermingling all ontological registers, than a stratification into separable mediums of variation. — fdrake
These are problems that arise from the hard problem of consciousness. These are the (practically) intractable, ever-debatable problems and hence the more interesting question, in my opinion. — schopenhauer1
Of course this itself is a claim that needs its own justification. The fact that you mention ontological registers, means there is a substantive difference. What are these differences is the question I am posing. — schopenhauer1
They are connected causally.How does, let's say, "my desire for food" (desire interaction?), or "the ability to use a computer" (technology interaction), answer the question of how matter and mind are connected other that indeed the mind can think of technological thoughts and have desires. — schopenhauer1
Indirect realism solves the dualistic problem. The world isn't as it appears. This is why we experience illusions.They may say, "The mental is an illusion".
Then you will say, "What then is this illusion you speak of"?
And then ensues their inability to tidily account for the illusion in anything other than a duality. — schopenhauer1
A mirage still looks the same (like a pool of water). The only difference is that I don't believe that it's a pool of water. The straw still appears bent even though I know it's not. So an illusion is only an illusion when you misinterpret what you are seeing. You are seeing light, not objects. You see objects indirectly through the behavior of light. Matter is the result of how your visual system interprets and categorizes the information it receives from the light entering the eye. Everything is information, not matter and/or mind. It is the use of those terms ("matter" and "mind") that cause one to think dualism is the only way out. — Harry Hindu
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