Nice video. Objection: a property dualist could think there is a single physical substratum with mental and physical properties. Reply: why call the substratum "physical"? Reply to reply: because the physical properties are more fundamental. Reply to reply to reply: but that leads to the causal exclusion problem... Those are my thoughts, which support your main thesis. Again, nice work!
Thank you! I think you're absolutely right, the property dualist will face the exclusion problem as noted at 2:24. Another reply that I would add is that the property dualist will lapse into substance dualism since properties are part or all of the metaphysical nature of the substance, so there must be a mental substance to bear the mental properties (Schneider, 2013; Searle, 2002; Zimmerman, 2010) as noted at 3:40.
"How it is that any thing as remarkable as a state of consciousness comes about as a result of irritating nervous tissue, is just as unaccountable as the appearance of the Djin when Aladdin rubbed his lamp." - T.H. Huxley
@AnduinX I understand that you fear death and want to live forever, so you cling to Kastrup quackery. I think I can help your irrationality and belief in nonsense. I want you to read Evidence of the Senses by David Kelley, and I want you to really dive into How we Know by Harry Binswanger. I think those books will help you a lot and stop your dishonest thinking and evasive tactics and your biases and belief in the occult.
@@Dhorpatan I understand you fear the idea that consciousness may persist beyond death, because you fear the unknown. I recommend going through Kastrup's Analytic Idealism course, which will set you straight by showing you the basic logical errors at the foundation of your position. Strong emergence is magical "woo woo".
@@anduinxbym6633 *"strong emergence is magical woo woo"* See! That is *EXACTLY* what I mean by you having bias and dishonest thinking. I made a video articulating 3 mechanisms for strong emergence. So it cant be magic by definition.👍
@@Dhorpatan Your videos never get things right, and I have already explained exactly why strong emergence as an explanation is indistinguishable from magic. It is you who has failed to see reason - just as one would expect from somebody who claims to be a property dualist, claims that they have not taken the foundations of a physical universe to be fundamental, and claims that _"existence itself"_ is their ontological primitive all at the same time. I have stopped expecting any kind of actual logical thought from you.
This is a very good video. I think you’ve demonstrated the pressures against the position because the non-reductive physicalist doesn’t want to deny that some mental events cause physical events. This is because it either leads to a non-interactive form of dualism (like epiphenomenalism, parallelism) or eliminative materialism. The second thing they don’t want to deny is that every physical effect has a sufficient physical cause because this is what the substance dualists/emergentists also commonly deny. If you also say the mental properties are just the same as the physical properties to escape causal closure, then the position has collapsed into a form of reductive physicalism - defeating the goal and purpose of non-reductive physicalism. I do think though its possible for the non-reductive physicalist/property dualist to escape the Exclusion Problem. The non-reductive physicalist can simply maintain there is no systematic causal-overdetermination within their model. The non-reductive physicalist commonly distinguishes between worrying and non-worrying case in which an event has more than one sufficient cause. The non-worrying cases are not cases of genuine overdetermination. *Worrying cases:* these are cases where each of the causes would have been sufficient to bring about the effect in the absence of the other. That is, cases in which the two causes are independent from each other. *Non-worrying cases:* these are cases in which two causes are not independent. According to the non-reductive physicalist, mental properties depend on physical properties for their existence and hence mental causes depend on physical causes for their existence. Hence mental and physical causes depend are not independent from each other. Hence, given non-reductive physicalism, psychophysical causation does not give rise to worrying overdetermination. I have a feeling though you will respond by questioning whether the non-reductive physicalist/property dualist can provide a plausible account of the dependence relation between mental and physical properties. In the past, non-reductive physicalists used to appeal to supervenience to capture this property dependence relation. This view has now fallen out of favour in modern times because the supervenience of one property on another merely indicates a correlation between the two properties, and property correlation does not entail property dependence. This shows something more is needed. I believe we can solve the problem with Sydney Shoemaker’s type of non-reductive physicalism. Shoemaker has a unique account of properties. Properties bestow powers on the things that have them. Where X and Y are properties, X is identical with Y if and only if X and Y bestow the same *set* of powers on their bearers. This now leads into Shoemaker’s account of dependence. Property Y depends on Property X if Y is realized by X. Y is realized by X if and only if *the powers that Y bestows are a subset of the powers that X bestows.* Hence where X has powers P1 and P2 and Y had Power P1, Y is realized by X because Y’s powers are a subset of X’s. According to Shoemaker, mental properties are realized by physical properties. This, therefore, solves the problem of mental causation. 1. Non-reductive physicalism maintains that mental and physical properties are distinct. If mental properties are realized by physical properties they are distinct (assuming Shoemaker’s account of properties). 2. In accordance with non-reductive physicalism, mental properties depend on physical properties, because they are realized by them. 3. This provides a potent response to the argument from causal overdetermination. Say that physical Property P bestows powers P1 and P2 and that mental property M bestows power P1. Say P1 is the power to move your hand. Then: *(1)* Mental properties are causally relevant in the physical domain as M bestows P1. *(2)* Despite this there is no violation of the causal closure principle - every power that M bestows is a power that P bestows. *(3)* There is no worrying overdetermination. The power that M bestows is the very same power that P bestows.
Thank you, I appreciate your compliment on the video and your well thought out comment. Though you seem to be a non-reductive physicalist of sorts, you're well aware of some of the pressures it runs into and I think it's a good thing that you face them head on instead of trying to deny these pressures like some reductive physicalists I've encountered before. I'm not seeing how mental causes being dependent on physical causes would mean this is not genuine overdetermination and is not worrying. If the physical causes are sufficient then it seems like adding an additional mental cause to this picture would be overdetermination whether we're saying the mental is dependent or independent. This point applies to Shoemaker's point as well. One of the premises that Prof. Tse brought up is that mental events are realized in physical events, and that's crucial to pointing out how this leads to epiphenomenalism. This is made all the more apparent when we realize that causation is transitive (If C causes D and D causes E, then C causes E). It seems like the only way out of this scenario would be to deny causal closure by insisting that physical causes are not sufficient, but that would seem lead to more problems than it solves. In light of this, the only way to preserve mental causation as well as causal closure is to embrace idealism. I go over this a bit more in my video "The Argument from Mental Causation": ruclips.net/video/FuuUJc__KDo/видео.html Also, what are your thoughts on the interaction problem and the lapse into substance dualism? If a non-physical substance interacting with a physical substance leads to the interaction problem, then it seems we have the same problem when it comes to non-physical properties interacting with physical properties. How does a non-physical property interact with a physical property? This seems like the same problem Descartes faced but in terms of properties instead of substances. And if properties of a certain type require a substance of a certain type in order to bear them, then it seems property dualism lapses into a version of substance dualism and is therefore not a stable position.
I'm exploring the idea of the Concrete (or Physical/Material) and the Abstract as being co-emergent and entangled (i.e. not causally separated). And, just like software can run on a computer without violating physical law, I'm not sure why evolution couldn't have fashioned algorithms (which seem to have abstract properties) hosted by the brain. If our minds recognize the Abstract and the Abstract is (necessarily) represented physically in the brain, then the mental and the physical can be in a one-to-one and onto condition, allowing causality the freedom to proceed from either direction.
I need to amp up my video production if I'm going to compete with you lol 3:15 I would actually disagree here. I think the overdetermination only comes about when a person _accepts_ causal closure but then _also_ posits separate mental causation in addition to physical causation. To deny causal closure is to deny the sufficiency of physical causes, so it cannot be overdetermination to posit non-physical causes when your position _requires_ that there be some, there is only overdetermination when you posit non-physical causes while also believing that physical causes are in fact sufficient and so accept causal closure. Other than that, great video.
Why compete? Join me, and together we can rule the galaxy as father and son lol I'm glad we still agree that property dualism (non-reductive physicalism) is false. Overdetermination occurs when a single-observed effect is determined by multiple causes, any one of which alone would be sufficient to account for ("determine") the effect. If causal closure is _accepted_ then that single-observed effect is determined by only one cause, the physical, and the mental causes are excluded from having any causal role in physical effects. This would mean there is no overdetermination but at the cost of mental causation. If causal closure is _denied_ then that single-observed effect is determined by many causes and as noted in the SEP's subsection on no overdetermation: "[this] would would involve an “intolerable coincidence” (Melnyk 2003, p. 291): every time you act, there are two independent causal processes-one from your brain, another from your soul-converging on the same effect". Source: plato.stanford.edu/entries/mental-causation/#ComPhy Another point I could make is circumstantial, it depends primarily on how one comes to be a property dualist and may not address your point about sufficiency directly. A big argument for irreducible properties is the zombie argument, which if one accepts its premises would mean it's metaphysically possible that there's creatures just like us physically and functionally that nonetheless lack consciousness. If one accepts this sort of reasoning, as many properties dualists do, then it would seem they would have to admit that physical causes are sufficient for physical effects such as human behavior even though they believe there's actually an additional sufficient cause that is mental.
I doubt property-dualism necessarily has to collapse into substance-dualism (albeit they both share the interaction problem) Mind and body being separate substances means they can exist independently. What differentiates the property-dualist philosophical scheme from cartesian dualism, is the mental properties can only exist when realized by something physical and cease to exist when the body dies.
Existing independently is a part of the criteria for Cartesian substances, but that's not the only way to view substances. The substratum theory and bundle theory of substance is not dependent on the Cartesian view of substances. Given this we can see how the property dualist lapses into a kind of emergent substance dualism since properties are part or all of the metaphysical nature of the substance.
As a fellow monistic idealist, the irony in this video is the clip of Peter Tse. Who is himself a property dualist, and you are clipping a part of him, to show why it is false!
At 6:52 you argue against emergentism. It is a popular view in philosophy today. It is seen as an alternative to reductionism and there are significant cases of alleged emergence, such as: - Life emerging from lifeless components. - Mind emerging from mindless components. - Meaning emerging from meaningless components. - Free will emerging from nomologically-constrained components. - Social phenomena emerging from groups of individuals. You use the common “weak” and “strong” emergence distinction used today in philosophy of mind and you have argued that the “strong” form is magic. It was popularized by David Chalmers and he thinks the same way by saying emergentism is opposed to naturalism (it is hence “magic”). *Weak emergence:* A phenomenon is weakly emergent when its appearance is surprising or unpredictable, given what we know about the lower-level phenomenon. E.g. you could see a brain and not understand in the slightest how it could give rise to consciousness. *Strong emergence:* A phenomenon is strongly emergent when it is not even predictable or explicable in-principle how it emerges from lower-level phenomena. You could know everything about B but still be in no position to predict or explain E. However, I am skeptical of this distinction. Given how explanation and prediction are two of the major tasks of science, Chalmers’s account sets strong emergence directly against naturalism. I don’t like this distinction because understanding real (strong) emergence in this way is not helpful. Understanding weak emergence in this way is not helpful either since a reductionist will just dismiss it as a merely epistemic claim, hence not ontologically genuine. Now another argument against emergentism (by Strawson) is presented as an objection from bruteness: There has to be some intelligible sense in which E (an emergent phenomenon) emerges from B (a lower-level emergent base for E), rather than from anything else. Nor should it be just free floating, as in dualism. The emergence of E cannot be just a brute fact (as in what C. D. Broad argued, for instance). What are at stake are the naturalistic credentials of E specifically but emergence generally. If commitment to emergence is a rejection of the scientific view of the world then it does not look good for emergentism nor emergentist accounts of any specific phenomena. Many variations of emergentism run into problems and don’t seem to be compatible with a scientific or naturalistic view of the world (such as mere composition, non-linear composition, and new properties models). I am going to defend the position that emergentism is compatible with naturalism and is not “magic” as you claim. This model of emergence is known as the ‘causal transformative (CT) model’. As in Wilson (2016), it is best to articulate claims of emergence in terms of causal powers. Some powers of wholes emerge only from the powers of the components being together and interacting, hence being changed by their participation in the whole (Anjum 2017). Simple example: chemical bonding involves changes in the elements. The original components only exist ‘virtually’ in the whole, as the scholastics said. This means that in forming the whole, they have to undergo changes. In this sense, there is neither pure hydrogen nor pure oxygen in H2O, once they have formed the molecule. This explains why the powers of wholes are not simply aggregates of the powers of their parts. E.g. chlorine is a poisonous gas; sodium ignites spontaneously on water. But sodium chloride has neither of these causal powers. And it tastes salty, which none of its components do. Water has a power to extinguish fire but neither of its components have that power. Hydrogen and oxygen have the opposite power, of fuelling fire. Here we get a radical kind emergence. The coming together of the parts to form a whole involves a transformation of the parts through their interaction. Emergent powers of wholes cannot then be mere aggregates of the powers of parts because those parts themselves change, losing their qualitative identity, in order to enter into that whole. And it is by a power entering into a relation with another that a new, holistic power emerges. I think this model is potentially the best for highlighting the importance and intellectual potency of emergence. The account seems to give us a strong ontological emergence in a perfectly naturalistic way, without resorting to any deus ex machina ‘magical’, ‘spooky’ or ‘whacky’ device. The argument from bruteness is defeated. Emergence is not just some brute fact about higher-level phenomena but is perfectly naturalistically explicable. Hence, the scientific project of understanding how life emerges from lifeless parts or mind emerging from mindless parts makes sense. Similarly, it could in theory be scientifically explained how consciousness emerges from conscious parts but this still count as emergence. Emergence also suggests a discontinuity in nature that rejects reductionism. Although the lower-level base phenomena produce the higher-level emergent phenomena, once those emergent phenomena exist, they have a degree of causal independence from their lower-level base. E.g. I can decide to leave the room and when I do so I take my molecules with me. My molecules do not take me out of the room. My mental powers have a degree of causal independence from my body and are capable of exercising downward causal influence. So knowing the fundamental facts is not to know all the facts.
Yes, I do argue against emergentism. Though emergentism is popular today, that mostly applies to weak emergence instead of strong emergence. I understand that you are skeptical of the distinction between weak and strong emergence, but I think one way to clear that skepticism up is to identify how emergence and reductionism overlap. Weak emergence is seen as compatible with reductionism, since the emergent phenomenon is not ontologically distinct in kind (e.g. physical wholes emerge from physical parts) while strong emergence is _not_ compatible with reductionism (non-physical wholes emerge from physical parts). These are two different views, and even in the alleged cases you brought up often times scientists and philosophers attempt to explain these cases through the lens of weak emergence and take strong emergence as a more radical view. Scientists and philosophers often take life to be a physical biological phenomenon that emerges from more fundamental physical phenomenon like particles. To make these alleged cases relevant to strong emergence you would have to hold that life is non-physical, or that mind is non-physical and so on. This is where it begins to look like magic according to those like Mark Bedau. It's understandable how parts of a certain kind can form wholes of that certain kind, but obtaining something completely distinct in ontological kind altogether is another story. Going from the micro to the macro is easy to conceptualize since you're just moving up and down a spectrum and going from lower levels to higher levels, but transcending all of those levels altogether into a new ontological category is indistinguishable from magic. If we accept phenomenon, like mind, to be non-physical, and we hold others, like bodies, to be physical, then the same problem of interaction that Descartes faced is going to re-appear. How does this non-physical mind interact with the physical brain? Even if we posit the non-physical mind as emergent from the brain, this gets us no closer to solving the interaction problem, especially if we accept causal closure as many philosophers and scientists do. If the physical world is causally closed then there's no room for "you" to have causal powers when the molecules leave the room. The movement of the physical body leaving the room is sufficiently explained by the micro-level interactions of physical particles and other weakly emergent chemical and biological phenomenon, hence your view would lapse into a form of epiphenomenalism in which the strongly emergent non-physical mind has no causal work to do with the physical body. I argue that the only way to permanently dissolve the interaction problem is to accept a form of monism. Since mind is irreducible, a materialistic monism is unacceptable, and so the only option we have left for monism is an idealistic monism in which reality is exhaustively mental in its nature. This means there's no problem of how either the physical or mental emerges or interacts from/with one another because all that exists is the mental. To be clear, I'm not eliminating the physical, but rather I'm reducing the physical. What you call objects, like tables, are real, it's just that instead of holding them to be "physical" objects I hold them to be mental objects.
Hi everyone and to monistic idealism what's your thoughts on process philosophy, you know whiteheads panpsychism or any naturalist view on process philosophy of how life and consciousness could function? It does appear that consciousness studies at times seem to point to a more idealist view of mind as everything?
Hello. I don't have too many thoughts on process philosophy or Whitehead in particular. From what I've read and heard I interpret Whitehead's view as a kind of idealism, but this idea of a process ontology doesn't make much sense to me. I'm much more drawn to substance metaphysics, as is the case with most metaphysicians, so we see processes as being of something in particular, there is an entity there which engages with the process, rather than the entity being a process or a denial of any substance to the process. I know I'm biased but I do agree that consciousness studies do seem to point more to idealism in that mind is everything. Even David Chalmers said that while in graduate school he recalls hearing: "On starts as a materialist, then one becomes a dualist, then a panpsychist, and one ends up as an idealist."
@@MonisticIdealism I thankyou for your honestly being biased is our classic response to what we feel or know to be truth for each of us.. you know I like your understanding that there is a entity that is part of some universal process, but not the process itself. Like some construct or illusion, As many mainstream thinkers view us in a reductive light. With out limited perception of the world itself out filter to see how things really are. I sometimes get all nihilist and give up and just laugh at the paradox or enigma of what we really are. 😃🤣 your right about david chalmers i think recently he has moved from panpsychism to idealism view. I guess the ancients were right, we are all consciouness or God itself. I have a book that you might like which is (The Doctrine of Vibration) an analysis of the Doctrine and practices of Kashmir Shaivism) it's old Indian idealist philosophy. thank you once again. Your channel is most insightful..
@@restorationofidentity Thank you for your positive comment and book recommendation. I've been a bit more curious about eastern idealism so this will make a good addition to the reading list and collection I have on that topic. I'm glad this channel can offer some insight and I look forward to making more content for you and everyone else.
@@MonisticIdealismMuch appreciated and your most welcome. 👍😀 I think that perhaps the marriage between Eastern & Western religions/philosophy will create a holistic approach to the mind/reailty.. keep up the good work.. just the say am a citizen of the United kingdom UK as am more learn't in western values simlier to yourself i assume.
Why must the monism be either Physical or Mental? Why not something unknown? Also, what are your problems with Spinoza's Substance Monism and naming two properties i.e. extension and mental. Why should these be the only two properties possible? Is it because they are currently unknown, we are justified in saying it doesn't or cannot exist?
Those are just the main options available is all. Anyone is free to present an alternative at any time, but if they're holding to a non-mental monism then they will face problems that I've pointed out in my videos. If they try to reduce the mental to this other non-mental substance then that's going to encounter a version of the hard problem of consciousness. If they don't reduce the mental then I argue that they will lapse into a form of substance dualism since irreducible mental properties require an irreducible substance to bear them. This is essentially my problem with Spinoza: by not reducing the physical to the mental he ends up lapsing into a kind of substance dualism. If he holds there is only one type of substance and property, the mental, then he can maintain monism with no problem.
@@MonisticIdealism That's just the problem. I see no reason why one should accept that assumption. That a substance must have only one property, whether it be irreducible or otherwise. This seems to be one of the assumptions being made for your argument to run.
@@CMVMic According to the main theories of substance, substratum theory and bundle theory, properties are part or all of the metaphysical nature of the substance. So this isn't an assumption on my part, I'm just being consistent with the main theories of substance as I explain at 3:40. Ralph Weir (Ph.D. Cambridge University) has a few lectures that go over this as well: 1. Why Property Dualists Should be Cartesians: ruclips.net/video/vzu1s3isiqc/видео.html 2. The Phenomenal Argument for Mental Substance: ruclips.net/video/Vl_U7uVAYZY/видео.html Dr. Weir is also going to be authoring the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy's entry entitled "Substance", it should be coming out this year, so you'll be able to also read all about this there very soon.
@@MonisticIdealism I look forward to his entry. Descartes believed substance cannot have more than one property, whereas, Spinoza argued for the impossibility of substances with fewer than all attributes. See Michael Dell Rocca 2002 p. 12. Also, Michael Della Rocca 2010 also wrote a paper "PSR" where he made an explicability argument against consciousness being irreducible. The question is whether there is only one property i.e. mind. However, it is only presupposed since we cannot go beyond mind to know. Therefore, our epistemic capabilities are also limited by foundational arbitrariness and inability to solve the problem of the criterion and address Munchassen's trilemma without begging the question. There is always an object/subject impasse. Also, your illustration misrepresents bundle theory since it shows a group of mental properties are equivalent to a mental substance, however, if there were physical properties as well, then a substance can be the grouping of them both, so your argument assumes consciousness is irreducible since one has to use their mind to argue against it. However, the cogito ergo sum has been doubted by Pyrrhonian skeptics such as Carneades on youtube.
@@CMVMic I look forward to his entry as well. In the mean time those lectures I linked are very useful and I hope you check them out. I believe they will give a good preview to what he will say in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Do you agree with Rocca about his argument for the reducibility of consciousness? If what you're saying about epistemology is true then it sounds like idealism would have the advantage in that case. If the only properties we could ever know are mental properties, and everything can be explained in mental terms, why go beyond the mental? If you're a skeptic then this should be all the more appealing to you. Yes the argument does assume consciousness is irreducible and there's a reason for that: I'm giving a critique of property dualism, which assumes consciousness is irreducible. I am arguing that certain fatal consequences follow by affirming substance monism (substance physicalism) and property irreducibility (irreducible mental properties and irreducible physical properties). So this isn't a misrepresentation of bundle theory at all. I provided several scholarly citations in the video that support all of this, I have them linked in the description.
As an eliminative materialist, i liked your video. Property dualism is obviously a cop out. Even panpsychism and substance dualism is more consistent than property dualism.
@@freandwhickquest *"As an eliminative materialist"* What the hell is an eliminative materialist? is that like Dennett, and you think mind doesn't exist? *"Property dualism is obviously a cop out"* Why is Property Dualism a cop out and inconsistent?😄
Lmao, the argument against property dualism is grounded in a quite controversial view about the relationship of substances and properties. That's precisely what property dualists reject, so in the end you are just begging the question against the property dualism.
There are several arguments against property dualism used in this video. Which particular argument are you talking about and what is controversial about what I said on substances and properties?
Exactly, when I first heard of the exclusion "argument" I thought it was something serious. IT JUST BEGS THE QUESTION! It doesn't formulate an argument against it, it just asks how is it like this! Other comments said eliminatism and panpsihism are more coherent. Weak emergence is basically panphysism, which is ridiculously stupid. Substance dualism is kinda unfalsifiable, and it leaves an open question, why such a coincidence that the brain and the soul correlate when someone wakes up from sleep. Panphysism makes sleep impossible. I cant stand the stupidity of attacking strong emergence. Without it not even locality would exist
@@haros2868 Well, I can at least answer why the admin of this channel constantly digs the literature about pieces of arguments against all views except his own, and almost he never presents pieces of argument for any view except his own. Because he is engaging in rhetoric and propaganda, and he is utterly biased and incompetent.
@@anteodedi8937 Of course. It not obviously only the idealists, but also the reductionalists. Non reductive matterialism or strong emergence is the most accurate and non paradoxical explanation, but aside that it gets hate from both new era atheists and theists. When the solution is "in the middle" the two Extremes (all dead matter or all is soul) will become a team and go against the 3rd contestant. Its a matter of bias at this point, rationality has long been dead
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Nice video. Objection: a property dualist could think there is a single physical substratum with mental and physical properties. Reply: why call the substratum "physical"? Reply to reply: because the physical properties are more fundamental. Reply to reply to reply: but that leads to the causal exclusion problem... Those are my thoughts, which support your main thesis. Again, nice work!
Thank you! I think you're absolutely right, the property dualist will face the exclusion problem as noted at 2:24. Another reply that I would add is that the property dualist will lapse into substance dualism since properties are part or all of the metaphysical nature of the substance, so there must be a mental substance to bear the mental properties (Schneider, 2013; Searle, 2002; Zimmerman, 2010) as noted at 3:40.
I tend towards property dualism (we observe physical world, but our consciousness is clearly not physical), but this is really well done.
Well done! The ridiculousness of "strong emergence" cannot be overstated!
"How it is that any thing as remarkable as a state of consciousness comes about as a result of irritating nervous tissue, is just as unaccountable as the appearance of the Djin when Aladdin rubbed his lamp." - T.H. Huxley
@AnduinX
I understand that you fear death and want to live forever, so you cling to Kastrup quackery. I think I can help your irrationality and belief in nonsense. I want you to read Evidence of the Senses by David Kelley, and I want you to really dive into How we Know by Harry Binswanger. I think those books will help you a lot and stop your dishonest thinking and evasive tactics and your biases and belief in the occult.
@@Dhorpatan I understand you fear the idea that consciousness may persist beyond death, because you fear the unknown. I recommend going through Kastrup's Analytic Idealism course, which will set you straight by showing you the basic logical errors at the foundation of your position. Strong emergence is magical "woo woo".
@@anduinxbym6633
*"strong emergence is magical woo woo"*
See! That is *EXACTLY* what I mean by you having bias and dishonest thinking. I made a video articulating 3 mechanisms for strong emergence. So it cant be magic by definition.👍
@@Dhorpatan Your videos never get things right, and I have already explained exactly why strong emergence as an explanation is indistinguishable from magic. It is you who has failed to see reason - just as one would expect from somebody who claims to be a property dualist, claims that they have not taken the foundations of a physical universe to be fundamental, and claims that _"existence itself"_ is their ontological primitive all at the same time. I have stopped expecting any kind of actual logical thought from you.
Great video.. Very well made.
thank you!
You're welcome.. Keep posting these great videos!!
I wish Kyle had brought up the monism objection in his debate with Ben Watkins because he was so excited about the fact his view was monistic.
Me too, I would really liked to see if Ben Watkins has any sort of rebuttal to that objection.
What is the “monism objection” and to which theory does it object?
This is a very good video. I think you’ve demonstrated the pressures against the position because the non-reductive physicalist doesn’t want to deny that some mental events cause physical events. This is because it either leads to a non-interactive form of dualism (like epiphenomenalism, parallelism) or eliminative materialism. The second thing they don’t want to deny is that every physical effect has a sufficient physical cause because this is what the substance dualists/emergentists also commonly deny. If you also say the mental properties are just the same as the physical properties to escape causal closure, then the position has collapsed into a form of reductive physicalism - defeating the goal and purpose of non-reductive physicalism. I do think though its possible for the non-reductive physicalist/property dualist to escape the Exclusion Problem. The non-reductive physicalist can simply maintain there is no systematic causal-overdetermination within their model.
The non-reductive physicalist commonly distinguishes between worrying and non-worrying case in which an event has more than one sufficient cause. The non-worrying cases are not cases of genuine overdetermination.
*Worrying cases:* these are cases where each of the causes would have been sufficient to bring about the effect in the absence of the other. That is, cases in which the two causes are independent from each other.
*Non-worrying cases:* these are cases in which two causes are not independent.
According to the non-reductive physicalist, mental properties depend on physical properties for their existence and hence mental causes depend on physical causes for their existence. Hence mental and physical causes depend are not independent from each other. Hence, given non-reductive physicalism, psychophysical causation does not give rise to worrying overdetermination.
I have a feeling though you will respond by questioning whether the non-reductive physicalist/property dualist can provide a plausible account of the dependence relation between mental and physical properties. In the past, non-reductive physicalists used to appeal to supervenience to capture this property dependence relation. This view has now fallen out of favour in modern times because the supervenience of one property on another merely indicates a correlation between the two properties, and property correlation does not entail property dependence. This shows something more is needed.
I believe we can solve the problem with Sydney Shoemaker’s type of non-reductive physicalism.
Shoemaker has a unique account of properties. Properties bestow powers on the things that have them. Where X and Y are properties, X is identical with Y if and only if X and Y bestow the same *set* of powers on their bearers.
This now leads into Shoemaker’s account of dependence.
Property Y depends on Property X if Y is realized by X.
Y is realized by X if and only if *the powers that Y bestows are a subset of the powers that X bestows.*
Hence where X has powers P1 and P2 and Y had Power P1, Y is realized by X because Y’s powers are a subset of X’s.
According to Shoemaker, mental properties are realized by physical properties.
This, therefore, solves the problem of mental causation.
1. Non-reductive physicalism maintains that mental and physical properties are distinct. If mental properties are realized by physical properties they are distinct (assuming Shoemaker’s account of properties).
2. In accordance with non-reductive physicalism, mental properties depend on physical properties, because they are realized by them.
3. This provides a potent response to the argument from causal overdetermination. Say that physical Property P bestows powers P1 and P2 and that mental property M bestows power P1. Say P1 is the power to move your hand. Then: *(1)* Mental properties are causally relevant in the physical domain as M bestows P1. *(2)* Despite this there is no violation of the causal closure principle - every power that M bestows is a power that P bestows. *(3)* There is no worrying overdetermination. The power that M bestows is the very same power that P bestows.
Thank you, I appreciate your compliment on the video and your well thought out comment. Though you seem to be a non-reductive physicalist of sorts, you're well aware of some of the pressures it runs into and I think it's a good thing that you face them head on instead of trying to deny these pressures like some reductive physicalists I've encountered before. I'm not seeing how mental causes being dependent on physical causes would mean this is not genuine overdetermination and is not worrying. If the physical causes are sufficient then it seems like adding an additional mental cause to this picture would be overdetermination whether we're saying the mental is dependent or independent. This point applies to Shoemaker's point as well. One of the premises that Prof. Tse brought up is that mental events are realized in physical events, and that's crucial to pointing out how this leads to epiphenomenalism. This is made all the more apparent when we realize that causation is transitive (If C causes D and D causes E, then C causes E). It seems like the only way out of this scenario would be to deny causal closure by insisting that physical causes are not sufficient, but that would seem lead to more problems than it solves. In light of this, the only way to preserve mental causation as well as causal closure is to embrace idealism. I go over this a bit more in my video "The Argument from Mental Causation": ruclips.net/video/FuuUJc__KDo/видео.html
Also, what are your thoughts on the interaction problem and the lapse into substance dualism? If a non-physical substance interacting with a physical substance leads to the interaction problem, then it seems we have the same problem when it comes to non-physical properties interacting with physical properties. How does a non-physical property interact with a physical property? This seems like the same problem Descartes faced but in terms of properties instead of substances. And if properties of a certain type require a substance of a certain type in order to bear them, then it seems property dualism lapses into a version of substance dualism and is therefore not a stable position.
I'm exploring the idea of the Concrete (or Physical/Material) and the Abstract as being co-emergent and entangled (i.e. not causally separated). And, just like software can run on a computer without violating physical law, I'm not sure why evolution couldn't have fashioned algorithms (which seem to have abstract properties) hosted by the brain. If our minds recognize the Abstract and the Abstract is (necessarily) represented physically in the brain, then the mental and the physical can be in a one-to-one and onto condition, allowing causality the freedom to proceed from either direction.
I need to amp up my video production if I'm going to compete with you lol
3:15 I would actually disagree here. I think the overdetermination only comes about when a person _accepts_ causal closure but then _also_ posits separate mental causation in addition to physical causation. To deny causal closure is to deny the sufficiency of physical causes, so it cannot be overdetermination to posit non-physical causes when your position _requires_ that there be some, there is only overdetermination when you posit non-physical causes while also believing that physical causes are in fact sufficient and so accept causal closure.
Other than that, great video.
Why compete? Join me, and together we can rule the galaxy as father and son lol
I'm glad we still agree that property dualism (non-reductive physicalism) is false. Overdetermination occurs when a single-observed effect is determined by multiple causes, any one of which alone would be sufficient to account for ("determine") the effect. If causal closure is _accepted_ then that single-observed effect is determined by only one cause, the physical, and the mental causes are excluded from having any causal role in physical effects. This would mean there is no overdetermination but at the cost of mental causation. If causal closure is _denied_ then that single-observed effect is determined by many causes and as noted in the SEP's subsection on no overdetermation: "[this] would would involve an “intolerable coincidence” (Melnyk 2003, p. 291): every time you act, there are two independent causal processes-one from your brain, another from your soul-converging on the same effect".
Source: plato.stanford.edu/entries/mental-causation/#ComPhy
Another point I could make is circumstantial, it depends primarily on how one comes to be a property dualist and may not address your point about sufficiency directly. A big argument for irreducible properties is the zombie argument, which if one accepts its premises would mean it's metaphysically possible that there's creatures just like us physically and functionally that nonetheless lack consciousness. If one accepts this sort of reasoning, as many properties dualists do, then it would seem they would have to admit that physical causes are sufficient for physical effects such as human behavior even though they believe there's actually an additional sufficient cause that is mental.
Well said sir
I doubt property-dualism necessarily has to collapse into substance-dualism (albeit they both share the interaction problem)
Mind and body being separate substances means they can exist independently.
What differentiates the property-dualist philosophical scheme from cartesian dualism, is the mental properties can only exist when realized by something physical and cease to exist when the body dies.
Existing independently is a part of the criteria for Cartesian substances, but that's not the only way to view substances. The substratum theory and bundle theory of substance is not dependent on the Cartesian view of substances. Given this we can see how the property dualist lapses into a kind of emergent substance dualism since properties are part or all of the metaphysical nature of the substance.
As a fellow monistic idealist, the irony in this video is the clip of Peter Tse. Who is himself a property dualist, and you are clipping a part of him, to show why it is false!
4:03 bookmark
At 6:52 you argue against emergentism. It is a popular view in philosophy today. It is seen as an alternative to reductionism and there are significant cases of alleged emergence, such as:
- Life emerging from lifeless components.
- Mind emerging from mindless components.
- Meaning emerging from meaningless components.
- Free will emerging from nomologically-constrained components.
- Social phenomena emerging from groups of individuals.
You use the common “weak” and “strong” emergence distinction used today in philosophy of mind and you have argued that the “strong” form is magic. It was popularized by David Chalmers and he thinks the same way by saying emergentism is opposed to naturalism (it is hence “magic”).
*Weak emergence:* A phenomenon is weakly emergent when its appearance is surprising or unpredictable, given what we know about the lower-level phenomenon. E.g. you could see a brain and not understand in the slightest how it could give rise to consciousness.
*Strong emergence:* A phenomenon is strongly emergent when it is not even predictable or explicable in-principle how it emerges from lower-level phenomena. You could know everything about B but still be in no position to predict or explain E.
However, I am skeptical of this distinction. Given how explanation and prediction are two of the major tasks of science, Chalmers’s account sets strong emergence directly against naturalism. I don’t like this distinction because understanding real (strong) emergence in this way is not helpful. Understanding weak emergence in this way is not helpful either since a reductionist will just dismiss it as a merely epistemic claim, hence not ontologically genuine.
Now another argument against emergentism (by Strawson) is presented as an objection from bruteness: There has to be some intelligible sense in which E (an emergent phenomenon) emerges from B (a lower-level emergent base for E), rather than from anything else. Nor should it be just free floating, as in dualism. The emergence of E cannot be just a brute fact (as in what C. D. Broad argued, for instance). What are at stake are the naturalistic credentials of E specifically but emergence generally. If commitment to emergence is a rejection of the scientific view of the world then it does not look good for emergentism nor emergentist accounts of any specific phenomena.
Many variations of emergentism run into problems and don’t seem to be compatible with a scientific or naturalistic view of the world (such as mere composition, non-linear composition, and new properties models).
I am going to defend the position that emergentism is compatible with naturalism and is not “magic” as you claim. This model of emergence is known as the ‘causal transformative (CT) model’.
As in Wilson (2016), it is best to articulate claims of emergence in terms of causal powers. Some powers of wholes emerge only from the powers of the components being together and interacting, hence being changed by their participation in the whole (Anjum 2017). Simple example: chemical bonding involves changes in the elements. The original components only exist ‘virtually’ in the whole, as the scholastics said. This means that in forming the whole, they have to undergo changes. In this sense, there is neither pure hydrogen nor pure oxygen in H2O, once they have formed the molecule. This explains why the powers of wholes are not simply aggregates of the powers of their parts. E.g. chlorine is a poisonous gas; sodium ignites spontaneously on water. But sodium chloride has neither of these causal powers. And it tastes salty, which none of its components do.
Water has a power to extinguish fire but neither of its components have that power. Hydrogen and oxygen have the opposite power, of fuelling fire.
Here we get a radical kind emergence. The coming together of the parts to form a whole involves a transformation of the parts through their interaction. Emergent powers of wholes cannot then be mere aggregates of the powers of parts because those parts themselves change, losing their qualitative identity, in order to enter into that whole. And it is by a power entering into a relation with another that a new, holistic power emerges.
I think this model is potentially the best for highlighting the importance and intellectual potency of emergence. The account seems to give us a strong ontological emergence in a perfectly naturalistic way, without resorting to any deus ex machina ‘magical’, ‘spooky’ or ‘whacky’ device. The argument from bruteness is defeated. Emergence is not just some brute fact about higher-level phenomena but is perfectly naturalistically explicable. Hence, the scientific project of understanding how life emerges from lifeless parts or mind emerging from mindless parts makes sense. Similarly, it could in theory be scientifically explained how consciousness emerges from conscious parts but this still count as emergence.
Emergence also suggests a discontinuity in nature that rejects reductionism. Although the lower-level base phenomena produce the higher-level emergent phenomena, once those emergent phenomena exist, they have a degree of causal independence from their lower-level base.
E.g. I can decide to leave the room and when I do so I take my molecules with me. My molecules do not take me out of the room. My mental powers have a degree of causal independence from my body and are capable of exercising downward causal influence. So knowing the fundamental facts is not to know all the facts.
Yes, I do argue against emergentism. Though emergentism is popular today, that mostly applies to weak emergence instead of strong emergence. I understand that you are skeptical of the distinction between weak and strong emergence, but I think one way to clear that skepticism up is to identify how emergence and reductionism overlap. Weak emergence is seen as compatible with reductionism, since the emergent phenomenon is not ontologically distinct in kind (e.g. physical wholes emerge from physical parts) while strong emergence is _not_ compatible with reductionism (non-physical wholes emerge from physical parts). These are two different views, and even in the alleged cases you brought up often times scientists and philosophers attempt to explain these cases through the lens of weak emergence and take strong emergence as a more radical view. Scientists and philosophers often take life to be a physical biological phenomenon that emerges from more fundamental physical phenomenon like particles. To make these alleged cases relevant to strong emergence you would have to hold that life is non-physical, or that mind is non-physical and so on. This is where it begins to look like magic according to those like Mark Bedau. It's understandable how parts of a certain kind can form wholes of that certain kind, but obtaining something completely distinct in ontological kind altogether is another story. Going from the micro to the macro is easy to conceptualize since you're just moving up and down a spectrum and going from lower levels to higher levels, but transcending all of those levels altogether into a new ontological category is indistinguishable from magic.
If we accept phenomenon, like mind, to be non-physical, and we hold others, like bodies, to be physical, then the same problem of interaction that Descartes faced is going to re-appear. How does this non-physical mind interact with the physical brain? Even if we posit the non-physical mind as emergent from the brain, this gets us no closer to solving the interaction problem, especially if we accept causal closure as many philosophers and scientists do. If the physical world is causally closed then there's no room for "you" to have causal powers when the molecules leave the room. The movement of the physical body leaving the room is sufficiently explained by the micro-level interactions of physical particles and other weakly emergent chemical and biological phenomenon, hence your view would lapse into a form of epiphenomenalism in which the strongly emergent non-physical mind has no causal work to do with the physical body.
I argue that the only way to permanently dissolve the interaction problem is to accept a form of monism. Since mind is irreducible, a materialistic monism is unacceptable, and so the only option we have left for monism is an idealistic monism in which reality is exhaustively mental in its nature. This means there's no problem of how either the physical or mental emerges or interacts from/with one another because all that exists is the mental. To be clear, I'm not eliminating the physical, but rather I'm reducing the physical. What you call objects, like tables, are real, it's just that instead of holding them to be "physical" objects I hold them to be mental objects.
What is Substance?
Hi everyone and to monistic idealism what's your thoughts on process philosophy, you know whiteheads panpsychism or any naturalist view on process philosophy of how life and consciousness could function? It does appear that consciousness studies at times seem to point to a more idealist view of mind as everything?
Hello. I don't have too many thoughts on process philosophy or Whitehead in particular. From what I've read and heard I interpret Whitehead's view as a kind of idealism, but this idea of a process ontology doesn't make much sense to me. I'm much more drawn to substance metaphysics, as is the case with most metaphysicians, so we see processes as being of something in particular, there is an entity there which engages with the process, rather than the entity being a process or a denial of any substance to the process. I know I'm biased but I do agree that consciousness studies do seem to point more to idealism in that mind is everything. Even David Chalmers said that while in graduate school he recalls hearing: "On starts as a materialist, then one becomes a dualist, then a panpsychist, and one ends up as an idealist."
@@MonisticIdealism I thankyou for your honestly being biased is our classic response to what we feel or know to be truth for each of us.. you know I like your understanding that there is a entity that is part of some universal process, but not the process itself. Like some construct or illusion, As many mainstream thinkers view us in a reductive light. With out limited perception of the world itself out filter to see how things really are. I sometimes get all nihilist and give up and just laugh at the paradox or enigma of what we really are. 😃🤣 your right about david chalmers i think recently he has moved from panpsychism to idealism view. I guess the ancients were right, we are all consciouness or God itself. I have a book that you might like which is (The Doctrine of Vibration) an analysis of the Doctrine and practices of Kashmir Shaivism) it's old Indian idealist philosophy. thank you once again. Your channel is most insightful..
@@restorationofidentity Thank you for your positive comment and book recommendation. I've been a bit more curious about eastern idealism so this will make a good addition to the reading list and collection I have on that topic. I'm glad this channel can offer some insight and I look forward to making more content for you and everyone else.
@@MonisticIdealismMuch appreciated and your most welcome. 👍😀 I think that perhaps the marriage between Eastern & Western religions/philosophy will create a holistic approach to the mind/reailty.. keep up the good work.. just the say am a citizen of the United kingdom UK as am more learn't in western values simlier to yourself i assume.
Why must the monism be either Physical or Mental? Why not something unknown? Also, what are your problems with Spinoza's Substance Monism and naming two properties i.e. extension and mental. Why should these be the only two properties possible? Is it because they are currently unknown, we are justified in saying it doesn't or cannot exist?
Those are just the main options available is all. Anyone is free to present an alternative at any time, but if they're holding to a non-mental monism then they will face problems that I've pointed out in my videos. If they try to reduce the mental to this other non-mental substance then that's going to encounter a version of the hard problem of consciousness. If they don't reduce the mental then I argue that they will lapse into a form of substance dualism since irreducible mental properties require an irreducible substance to bear them. This is essentially my problem with Spinoza: by not reducing the physical to the mental he ends up lapsing into a kind of substance dualism. If he holds there is only one type of substance and property, the mental, then he can maintain monism with no problem.
@@MonisticIdealism That's just the problem. I see no reason why one should accept that assumption. That a substance must have only one property, whether it be irreducible or otherwise. This seems to be one of the assumptions being made for your argument to run.
@@CMVMic According to the main theories of substance, substratum theory and bundle theory, properties are part or all of the metaphysical nature of the substance. So this isn't an assumption on my part, I'm just being consistent with the main theories of substance as I explain at 3:40. Ralph Weir (Ph.D. Cambridge University) has a few lectures that go over this as well:
1. Why Property Dualists Should be Cartesians: ruclips.net/video/vzu1s3isiqc/видео.html
2. The Phenomenal Argument for Mental Substance: ruclips.net/video/Vl_U7uVAYZY/видео.html
Dr. Weir is also going to be authoring the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy's entry entitled "Substance", it should be coming out this year, so you'll be able to also read all about this there very soon.
@@MonisticIdealism I look forward to his entry. Descartes believed substance cannot have more than one property, whereas, Spinoza argued for the impossibility of substances with fewer than all attributes. See Michael Dell Rocca 2002 p. 12. Also, Michael Della Rocca 2010 also wrote a paper "PSR" where he made an explicability argument against consciousness being irreducible.
The question is whether there is only one property i.e. mind. However, it is only presupposed since we cannot go beyond mind to know. Therefore, our epistemic capabilities are also limited by foundational arbitrariness and inability to solve the problem of the criterion and address Munchassen's trilemma without begging the question. There is always an object/subject impasse.
Also, your illustration misrepresents bundle theory since it shows a group of mental properties are equivalent to a mental substance, however, if there were physical properties as well, then a substance can be the grouping of them both, so your argument assumes consciousness is irreducible since one has to use their mind to argue against it. However, the cogito ergo sum has been doubted by Pyrrhonian skeptics such as Carneades on youtube.
@@CMVMic I look forward to his entry as well. In the mean time those lectures I linked are very useful and I hope you check them out. I believe they will give a good preview to what he will say in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Do you agree with Rocca about his argument for the reducibility of consciousness?
If what you're saying about epistemology is true then it sounds like idealism would have the advantage in that case. If the only properties we could ever know are mental properties, and everything can be explained in mental terms, why go beyond the mental? If you're a skeptic then this should be all the more appealing to you.
Yes the argument does assume consciousness is irreducible and there's a reason for that: I'm giving a critique of property dualism, which assumes consciousness is irreducible. I am arguing that certain fatal consequences follow by affirming substance monism (substance physicalism) and property irreducibility (irreducible mental properties and irreducible physical properties). So this isn't a misrepresentation of bundle theory at all. I provided several scholarly citations in the video that support all of this, I have them linked in the description.
What is your religion?
I'm a Christian.
As an eliminative materialist, i liked your video. Property dualism is obviously a cop out. Even panpsychism and substance dualism is more consistent than property dualism.
@@freandwhickquest Thank you and I definitely agree with you about panpsychism and substance dualism being far more consistent than property dualism.
@@freandwhickquest
*"As an eliminative materialist"*
What the hell is an eliminative materialist? is that like Dennett, and you think mind doesn't exist?
*"Property dualism is obviously a cop out"*
Why is Property Dualism a cop out and inconsistent?😄
@@freandwhickquest
Did RUclips fail to notify you of my comment, or are you refusing to engage intellectually and defend your claims?
Lmao, the argument against property dualism is grounded in a quite controversial view about the relationship of substances and properties. That's precisely what property dualists reject, so in the end you are just begging the question against the property dualism.
There are several arguments against property dualism used in this video. Which particular argument are you talking about and what is controversial about what I said on substances and properties?
Exactly, when I first heard of the exclusion "argument" I thought it was something serious. IT JUST BEGS THE QUESTION! It doesn't formulate an argument against it, it just asks how is it like this!
Other comments said eliminatism and panpsihism are more coherent. Weak emergence is basically panphysism, which is ridiculously stupid. Substance dualism is kinda unfalsifiable, and it leaves an open question, why such a coincidence that the brain and the soul correlate when someone wakes up from sleep. Panphysism makes sleep impossible.
I cant stand the stupidity of attacking strong emergence. Without it not even locality would exist
@@haros2868 Well, I can at least answer why the admin of this channel constantly digs the literature about pieces of arguments against all views except his own, and almost he never presents pieces of argument for any view except his own. Because he is engaging in rhetoric and propaganda, and he is utterly biased and incompetent.
@@anteodedi8937 Of course. It not obviously only the idealists, but also the reductionalists. Non reductive matterialism or strong emergence is the most accurate and non paradoxical explanation, but aside that it gets hate from both new era atheists and theists. When the solution is "in the middle" the two Extremes (all dead matter or all is soul) will become a team and go against the 3rd contestant. Its a matter of bias at this point, rationality has long been dead
@@haros2868 Yeah, I agree. Both views you mentioned are radical and implausible.