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Welcome back, Constance!
I actually don't like the term substance, but I use it because it seemed to clarify my thoughts for all of you.Soupie wrote: "If there were two substances that were fundamentally different, on account of this fundamental difference, these substances wouldn't be able to interact. Ergo anything that can interact must be made of the same fudamental substance."
I can't make sense of the above. I think the problem you're having is in hanging on to the term 'substance' so rigorously. It leads you, as Steve observed, to attempt to reduce both the physical and nonphysical aspects of reality to something essentially physical. At the same time, you refer frequently to nonphysical aspects of reality which you claim to take as 'real'. The core problem for you and all of us is still how to account for how unmistakeably nonphysical aspects of reality -- consciousness, mind, feeling, freedom, creativity, ethics, etc. -- arise in the world from physical substance. Tononi takes the question beyond 'substance' to 'information', which can hardly be thought of as itself a substance. The problem he presents for himself and anyone who follows him is the task of demonstrating in detail how information is produced and exchanged -- and universally entangled -- by interacting substances, fields, and forces to form a) the evolving universe we live in {evolved through complex systems}, and b) the human minds that are capable of consciously apprehending the universe's complexity and, indeed, their own complexity.
. . . An issue that you and Steve seem to have with my thinking is my idea that — yes, like the physical domain — the mental domain is composed of complex objects constituted of simpler objects.
Note 14 (page 18) in that paper tells us: "
An ancestor of this paper, “65,536 Definitions of Physicalism” (delivered at the Bowling Green conference on Formulating Physicalism in 2005) applied the method of elimination to the debate over physicalism in some detail, with the dispute between Dowell and Wilson at that conference serving as one focus."
I'd like to read that paper but can't find it online. Maybe he used it in his most recent book, Constructing the World.
intelligible emergentist Russellian monism
http://www.philipgoffphilosophy.com...34/against_constitutive_russellian_monism.pdf
You probably found the PowerPoint?
Here's Chalmers blog entry:
fragments of consciousness: 65,536 definitions of physicalism
He says the paper won't be published elsewhere, so PPT may be all we get.
Not good enough. In the blog entry I reprinted above he said he was going to write a paper on the definitions of physicalism and which one(s) might work. It's certainly an issue he should deliver on.
He says the paper won't be published elsewhere, so PPT may be all we get.
I actually don't like the term substance, but I use it because it seemed to clarify my thoughts for all of you.
If you recall, when I started in this discussion, I used the term "unit" which none of you seemed to comprehend.
No, I don't think of this substance/unit as physical. That's just it! With all due respect, if it weren't for Chalmers and other theorists I think I'd go bonkers, because they at least seem to grok the ideas I have about the mind/body problem. And I don't even mean to imply that "I'm right." What I'm saying is that — at least — the three of you seem to think about mind/mental/phenomenal much different than I.
I'm not saying my way of thinking is best or right. I love what you guys have to offer and it's introduced me to so much.
An issue that you and Steve seem to have with my thinking is my idea that — yes, like the physical domain — the mental domain is populated with complex objects constituted of simpler objects.
Humph. I just tried to give a detailed example explaining this idea but I just know it will result in confusion. Sigh. All I can say is that Chalmers tackles this concept with Constitutive Russellian Panprotopsychism — the idea that quanta possess physical and mental properties and combine to constitute physical and mental objects, and Tonini does as well with IIT — the idea that mental objects (qualia) are constituted of information.
I appreciate that you guys have different views/ideas regarding the mental and spiritual; however, my view, as disagreeable as you may find it, is not as ludicrous or near-sighted as you may or may not think. I'm open to these other ideas and enjoy hearing/reading about them, but they don't resonate with me, which is why I don't mention or discuss them in my limited time here.
I think there is an elephant in the room too! But I'll tell you what I think the elephant is. Capital M-Meaning, or Ultimate Meaning (UM). (By Ultimate Meaning I mean, heh, meaning that is not subjective but objective.)
Physical Substance Monists tend to believe in a deterministic universe devoid of Ultimate Meaning.
I sense that the three of you - @smcder, @Constance, @Tyger - strongly disagree with that concept. You all three seem to believe that there is Ultimate Meaning, particularly for humans.
This UM seems to be related to a supposed non-physical, spiritual realm. A realm filled with souls, God, gods, demons, and angels. These beings are interested in us. We - our souls, spirits, and/or minds - may even "belong" to this realm. A realm where there is Ultimate Meaning.
My own view is that while such a realm might exist, it won't have Ultimate Meaning, just lower case m-meaning.
There may be "spiritual" beings that exist and interact with us, but 1) they gotta be made of something and if they can interact with us, it's gotta be something related to the stuff we're made of, 2) while what these beings have in mind for us may be Ultimate to us, it wouldn't be Ultimate to them. Meaning, if we have a backstory, they too must have a backstory. That is, if we having UM via these entities, then from their POV it is subjective meaning.
It's the old argument: if God created us, who created Him?
If there is a spiritual realm that created us in the physical realm, who created them in the spiritual realm?
Finally, while I'm not as big a proponent of Langan as it may seem, haha, he is apparently a Substance Monist who very strongly believes in a reality suffused with Ultimate Meaning. Thus Substance Monism does not preclude there being UM.