This video is impressive for the clarity of its argument. Premise 1, which redefines causal closure is key. The standard definition is poor because it presupposes physicalism, but it is well-entrenched. I suggest calling your definition “Elisabethan causal closure” after Princess Elisabeth of the Palatinate (Elisabeth of Bohemia), who corresponded with Descartes, questioning the possibility of interaction between mind and matter, as these substances were understood by him. In “A New History of Western Philosophy” (OUP, 2010, p. 664), Anthony Kenny states, “Elizabeth had, in fact, located the fundamental weakness in Descartes’ philosophy of mind. […] The two [substances] are defined in such systematically different ways that mental and physical realities can interact, if at all, only in a mysterious manner that transcends the normal rules of causality and evidence.” Premise 2, the irreducibility of consciousness is far more plausible than its negation, which, upon examination, is tantamount to the denial of consciousness. Premise 3 affirms the causal effectiveness of consciousness: I love Searle’s robust defence of this undeniable premise (although other aspects of his position are highly questionable). It is strange that most philosophers do not defend mental causation. Roughly 95% of papers on the mind-body problem do not even mention this topic; instead, they are solely concerned with either perception or qualia. Epiphenomenalism has numerous problems, not least that it allows consciousness to be denied (by Occam’s Razor). If one accepts Monistic Idealism’s argument, there is the important remaining task of ensuring that the specifics of the idealist position one adopts engage as closely as possible with contemporary science.
Nice video! Proponents of the idea that mind is a property of matter must choose between the ridiculous idea that mind just magically pops into existence as a result of 'complexity' in non-conscious systems, or they are left with the combination problem if they assert that mind is present at the most basic of scales and that smaller perspectives combine into larger perspectives in complex biological systems. Directly reducing mind to non-conscious matter, as Daniel Dennett does, is not even tenable!
@Anduin *"Proponents of the idea that mind is a property of matter must choose between the ridiculous idea that mind just magically pops into existence as a result of 'complexity' in non-conscious systems"* You are being ridiculous again due to your bias. It is irrational and false to say that something comes about by magic, yet you provide a reason or means by which it comes about: Complexity. Magic is that which has no explanation or means, especially one based in reality. Blue has also just cemented what I have told you over and over, but you are too hardheaded and biased to have accepted. Just like with Johanan Raatz. Blue said this: "Idealism, I think, also has a far more complicated ontology than reductive physicalism". Idealism is not the least bit parsimoniious or would be selected via Occam's razor. Besides being nonsense, it is not parsimonious to choose and ontology that contradicts our senses and requires a deus ex machina infinite being to plug up problems. As I have told you and Monistic, there can be no causality on Idealism.
Technically a panpsychist could accept this and say that the physical has mental content to it, but still a very good argument. I’m not sure if the principle of causal closure precludes libertarian free will or not, I suppose it wouldn’t have to, since the libertarian is committed to the position that antecedent conditions leave open multiple effects, while the causal closure principle is suggesting that an event cannot have multiple sufficient causes.
Thank you. If they're the kind of panpsychist that holds the mental and physical as distinct that may conflict with premise 3 if they also accept premise 1, but it's possible to be an idealist and a panpsychist so I can see how an idealist panpsychist can accept all the premises and the conclusion with no problem.
Cosmopsychism is the combination of priority monism and panpsychism, and while I agree with priority monism I don't see a convincing reason to be a panpsychist. I'm more motivated to combine priority monism with idealism, and I'm still open to including panpsychism in that, I just don't see a good reason to do so.
@@MonisticIdealism Oh, that is very interesting. I am wondering is there really much of a substantive and qualitative difference between cosmopsychism and your priority-idealism. On a prima facie basis, they seem very similar to me. I also read a recently published paper that critiqued ‘idealist panpsychism’ (titled: ‘Idealist Panpsychism and Spacetime Structure’ by Damian Aleksiev) and I wonder whether your view could potentially fall victim to it 🤔
@@MonisticIdealism Oh, that is very interesting. I am wondering is there really much of a substantive and qualitative difference between cosmopsychism and your priority-idealism. On a prima facie basis, they seem very similar to me. I also read a recently published paper that critiqued ‘idealist panpsychism’ (titled: ‘Idealist Panpsychism and Spacetime Structure’ by Damian Aleksiev) and I wonder whether your view could potentially fall victim to it 🤔
@@georgeslemaitre3696 The difference between cosmopsychism (a version of panpsychism) and idealism is made clear in my video called: "Why Panpsychists Should Also be Idealists". Panpsychism, and hence cosmopsychism is only a meta-theory that is compatible with any conventional theory of mind. This means its possible to be a physicalist and a cosmopsychist, but one cannot be an idealist and a physicalist. I also address Damian Aleksiev's argument along with Bernardo Kastrup and my co-host Kyle Friesen in my most recent interview with Bernardo.
I have two questions: 1) doesn't the argument from the conservation of energy still apply even to idealism? 2) if all the events in the universe are mental and caused by mental causes (in the mind of God I presume) wouldn't that lead to some form of occasionalism?
Good questions. 1) No, because this is a form of monism. There's nothing outside the system since the system is purely mental. 2) No, because the other minds within God also have causal powers.
In the idealist model, if you have a particular brain-event, does that brain-event have 2 causes? 1. On one hand the cause is the inner mental state causing its outside-representation as the brain is the image of an individuated mind that has dissociated from the universal mind. 2. On the other hand, in the mentally-constructed consensus "physical" reality, (using the term physical loosely/not as in noumenal) presumably you can still have causation between "physical"-events right? So the brain event would also be caused by the prior brain-event. Does idealism have an overdetermination problem aswell? Even if all events are of the same (mental) type on an ontological level.
I would say no since I don't believe there's an ontologically distinct event called a brain event. It's all mental events. What you refer to as a brain event is just what a mental event looks like, so it's all mental events doing all the causal work and there is no distinct physical brain event from the mental event.
I'm willing to grant for the sake of argument that brain-events could be a type of mental-event. But it seems like mental-events can be distinct from other mental-events. The visual perception of seeing my brain activity is different from my subjective state I feel inside. In what sense are they two aspects of the "same" mental-event? As opposed to 2 different mental-events. One occurring in me, and the other one occurring in the person looking at my brain activity. Basically what I'm trying to get at is the relation between my internal-mental events and the external-mental events like the perceptions of my body from the 3rd person perspective by other conscious subjects. Do the outside-mental events cause my inside-mental events or the other way around? If they're identical it seems like an idealist version of the mind-brain identity-theory (which would inherit all the same problems.)
@@practicalzombie7355 Its not that the brain is a separate mental event, the brain is the appearance of that mental event. “Man has no Body distinct from his soul; for that called Body is a portion of a Soul discerned by the five senses, the chief inlets of Soul in this age.” - William Blake
What kind of causality concerns the reality of mind? In physicalism, we can deal with mechanistic explanations. What do you think about when it comes to the mind itself?
The argument is not valid, because premise 2 does not imply that consciousness is distinct from physical stuff. You can be a non-reductionist physicalist, accept all premises and hold that the conclusion is false.
Premise 2 entails that consciousness is not physical: to reduce the mental to the physical is to say the mental is identical to the physical, and premise 2 is saying the mental is irreducible. It's impossible for a non-reductive physicalist to affirm both premise 1 and premise 3. If there is causal closure then the distinct mental/physical events could not interact and so there would be no mental causation.
@@MonisticIdealism Can’t a non-reductive physicalist say that mental states are identical with some physical states, but that the physical states themselves do not reduce to fundamental physical states? We can ignore consciousness for a second and think of biology. MAYBE somebody who’s a non-reductionist about biology would tell you that indeed, biological states are identical with physical states, but those physical states do not themselves reduce to fundamental physical states.
@@randomblueguy I'm not seeing how that's possible. The mental either is reducible or it isn't. If it isn't and someone wants to be a non-reductive physicalist then they must either deny premise 1 or deny premise 3, there is no other option.
@@MonisticIdealism I think we’re using different definitions of reductionism. The one I’m using is this: Reductionism is true iff for each mental predicate F there is a neurobiological predicate G such that a sentence of the form ‘x is F iff x is G’ expresses a bridge law.
@@randomblueguy "The type of reductionism that is currently of most interest in metaphysics and philosophy of mind involves the claim that all sciences are reducible to physics.This is usually taken to entail that all phenomena (including mental phenomena like consciousness) are identical to physical phenomena." Source: iep.utm.edu/red-ism/ This is how I define reductionism, which is how it is usually defined. Are you holding that mental states are identical to physical states or not?
This video is impressive for the clarity of its argument.
Premise 1, which redefines causal closure is key. The standard definition is poor because it presupposes physicalism, but it is well-entrenched.
I suggest calling your definition “Elisabethan causal closure” after Princess Elisabeth of the Palatinate (Elisabeth of Bohemia), who corresponded with Descartes, questioning the possibility of interaction between mind and matter, as these substances were understood by him. In “A New History of Western Philosophy” (OUP, 2010, p. 664), Anthony Kenny states, “Elizabeth had, in fact, located the fundamental weakness in Descartes’ philosophy of mind. […] The two [substances] are defined in such systematically different ways that mental and physical realities can interact, if at all, only in a mysterious manner that transcends the normal rules of causality and evidence.”
Premise 2, the irreducibility of consciousness is far more plausible than its negation, which, upon examination, is tantamount to the denial of consciousness.
Premise 3 affirms the causal effectiveness of consciousness: I love Searle’s robust defence of this undeniable premise (although other aspects of his position are highly questionable). It is strange that most philosophers do not defend mental causation. Roughly 95% of papers on the mind-body problem do not even mention this topic; instead, they are solely concerned with either perception or qualia. Epiphenomenalism has numerous problems, not least that it allows consciousness to be denied (by Occam’s Razor).
If one accepts Monistic Idealism’s argument, there is the important remaining task of ensuring that the specifics of the idealist position one adopts engage as closely as possible with contemporary science.
great video
Searle killed me
Nice video! Proponents of the idea that mind is a property of matter must choose between the ridiculous idea that mind just magically pops into existence as a result of 'complexity' in non-conscious systems, or they are left with the combination problem if they assert that mind is present at the most basic of scales and that smaller perspectives combine into larger perspectives in complex biological systems. Directly reducing mind to non-conscious matter, as Daniel Dennett does, is not even tenable!
Well put! Do you think you'll ever make videos sharing your thoughts on philosophy of mind?
@@MonisticIdealism If I did, it would be from another channel, as this one is my gaming channel. I'll consider it when I get some more free time 😉
@@anduinxbym6633 Very cool. If you decide to upload some videos let me know about your channel and I'll subscribe.
@@MonisticIdealism Will do!
@Anduin
*"Proponents of the idea that mind is a property of matter must choose between the ridiculous idea that mind just magically pops into existence as a result of 'complexity' in non-conscious systems"*
You are being ridiculous again due to your bias. It is irrational and false to say that something comes about by magic, yet you provide a reason or means by which it comes about: Complexity. Magic is that which has no explanation or means, especially one based in reality.
Blue has also just cemented what I have told you over and over, but you are too hardheaded and biased to have accepted. Just like with Johanan Raatz. Blue said this: "Idealism, I think, also has a far more complicated ontology than reductive physicalism". Idealism is not the least bit parsimoniious or would be selected via Occam's razor. Besides being nonsense, it is not parsimonious to choose and ontology that contradicts our senses and requires a deus ex machina infinite being to plug up problems. As I have told you and Monistic, there can be no causality on Idealism.
Love your stuff keep it up
Do a video on debunking property dualism
We did one together on my channel if you're interested.
@Fanboy
It was hot garbage.😆
I think you could have further supported premise 1 with the principle of material causality. But the video is good where it's at
I really like this argument. Is it okay if I upload this video on TikTok?
Yeah that's cool
Technically a panpsychist could accept this and say that the physical has mental content to it, but still a very good argument.
I’m not sure if the principle of causal closure precludes libertarian free will or not, I suppose it wouldn’t have to, since the libertarian is committed to the position that antecedent conditions leave open multiple effects, while the causal closure principle is suggesting that an event cannot have multiple sufficient causes.
Thank you. If they're the kind of panpsychist that holds the mental and physical as distinct that may conflict with premise 3 if they also accept premise 1, but it's possible to be an idealist and a panpsychist so I can see how an idealist panpsychist can accept all the premises and the conclusion with no problem.
What are your thoughts on cosmopsychism?
Cosmopsychism is the combination of priority monism and panpsychism, and while I agree with priority monism I don't see a convincing reason to be a panpsychist. I'm more motivated to combine priority monism with idealism, and I'm still open to including panpsychism in that, I just don't see a good reason to do so.
@@MonisticIdealism Oh, that is very interesting. I am wondering is there really much of a substantive and qualitative difference between cosmopsychism and your priority-idealism. On a prima facie basis, they seem very similar to me. I also read a recently published paper that critiqued ‘idealist panpsychism’ (titled: ‘Idealist Panpsychism and Spacetime Structure’ by Damian Aleksiev) and I wonder whether your view could potentially fall victim to it 🤔
@@MonisticIdealism Oh, that is very interesting. I am wondering is there really much of a substantive and qualitative difference between cosmopsychism and your priority-idealism. On a prima facie basis, they seem very similar to me. I also read a recently published paper that critiqued ‘idealist panpsychism’ (titled: ‘Idealist Panpsychism and Spacetime Structure’ by Damian Aleksiev) and I wonder whether your view could potentially fall victim to it 🤔
@@georgeslemaitre3696 The difference between cosmopsychism (a version of panpsychism) and idealism is made clear in my video called: "Why Panpsychists Should Also be Idealists". Panpsychism, and hence cosmopsychism is only a meta-theory that is compatible with any conventional theory of mind. This means its possible to be a physicalist and a cosmopsychist, but one cannot be an idealist and a physicalist. I also address Damian Aleksiev's argument along with Bernardo Kastrup and my co-host Kyle Friesen in my most recent interview with Bernardo.
I have two questions:
1) doesn't the argument from the conservation of energy still apply even to idealism?
2) if all the events in the universe are mental and caused by mental causes (in the mind of God I presume) wouldn't that lead to some form of occasionalism?
Good questions.
1) No, because this is a form of monism. There's nothing outside the system since the system is purely mental.
2) No, because the other minds within God also have causal powers.
In the idealist model, if you have a particular brain-event, does that brain-event have 2 causes?
1. On one hand the cause is the inner mental state causing its outside-representation as the brain is the image of an individuated mind that has dissociated from the universal mind.
2. On the other hand, in the mentally-constructed consensus "physical" reality, (using the term physical loosely/not as in noumenal) presumably you can still have causation between "physical"-events right? So the brain event would also be caused by the prior brain-event.
Does idealism have an overdetermination problem aswell? Even if all events are of the same (mental) type on an ontological level.
I would say no since I don't believe there's an ontologically distinct event called a brain event. It's all mental events. What you refer to as a brain event is just what a mental event looks like, so it's all mental events doing all the causal work and there is no distinct physical brain event from the mental event.
I'm willing to grant for the sake of argument that brain-events could be a type of mental-event.
But it seems like mental-events can be distinct from other mental-events.
The visual perception of seeing my brain activity is different from my subjective state I feel inside.
In what sense are they two aspects of the "same" mental-event? As opposed to 2 different mental-events. One occurring in me, and the other one occurring in the person looking at my brain activity.
Basically what I'm trying to get at is the relation between my internal-mental events and the external-mental events like the perceptions of my body from the 3rd person perspective by other conscious subjects.
Do the outside-mental events cause my inside-mental events or the other way around? If they're identical it seems like an idealist version of the mind-brain identity-theory (which would inherit all the same problems.)
@@practicalzombie7355 Its not that the brain is a separate mental event, the brain is the appearance of that mental event.
“Man has no Body distinct from his soul; for that called Body is a portion of a Soul discerned by the five senses, the chief inlets of Soul in this age.” - William Blake
What kind of causality concerns the reality of mind? In physicalism, we can deal with mechanistic explanations. What do you think about when it comes to the mind itself?
Agent causation.
The argument is not valid, because premise 2 does not imply that consciousness is distinct from physical stuff. You can be a non-reductionist physicalist, accept all premises and hold that the conclusion is false.
Premise 2 entails that consciousness is not physical: to reduce the mental to the physical is to say the mental is identical to the physical, and premise 2 is saying the mental is irreducible. It's impossible for a non-reductive physicalist to affirm both premise 1 and premise 3. If there is causal closure then the distinct mental/physical events could not interact and so there would be no mental causation.
@@MonisticIdealism Can’t a non-reductive physicalist say that mental states are identical with some physical states, but that the physical states themselves do not reduce to fundamental physical states? We can ignore consciousness for a second and think of biology. MAYBE somebody who’s a non-reductionist about biology would tell you that indeed, biological states are identical with physical states, but those physical states do not themselves reduce to fundamental physical states.
@@randomblueguy I'm not seeing how that's possible. The mental either is reducible or it isn't. If it isn't and someone wants to be a non-reductive physicalist then they must either deny premise 1 or deny premise 3, there is no other option.
@@MonisticIdealism I think we’re using different definitions of reductionism. The one I’m using is this:
Reductionism is true iff for each mental predicate F there is a neurobiological predicate G such that a sentence of the form ‘x is F iff x is G’ expresses a bridge law.
@@randomblueguy "The type of reductionism that is currently of most interest in metaphysics and philosophy of mind involves the claim that all sciences are reducible to physics.This is usually taken to entail that all phenomena (including mental phenomena like consciousness) are identical to physical phenomena."
Source: iep.utm.edu/red-ism/
This is how I define reductionism, which is how it is usually defined. Are you holding that mental states are identical to physical states or not?