Charlatan & Wolly Green's fascinating philosophy fair

[Ren]

To be clear, I have no problem with strong emergence/I'm suspecting I am using it in the same way (or at least if I'm not, maybe you could say what seems to be part of my view of it that isn't part of yours) -- that some properties of the purported strongly emergent phenomenon cannot be even in principle predicted from those of the underlying one (in this case, the neutral), and my only comment is wouldn't neutral monism have the strongest case in solving the mind-body problem for real if we supposed mind/physical can be genuinely reduced to the neutral? Ie predicted from the neutral?

If not, it seems to me there's at least some reason to suspect the so-called neutral POV isn't that much better than the nonreductive physicalist one. After all, the whole point of saying something is mind-physical neutral IS that we can't seem to imagine how to reduce one to the other, yet we want a monist (one substance) POV, so the only remaining option seems to be to recast both in terms of something more fundamental (the neutral).

If mind and physical STILL remain strongly emergent, i.e. even in principle unpredictable from the neutral, it would seem one could ask: what is the concept of neutrality doing? What do we gain from it that wouldn't be gotten from saying: all in the world is physical, but mental properties are strongly emergent?

The classic problem of how could mind/physical interact is gone under physicalism of objects but with strongly emergent properties. What would the neutral pov add to this?

It’s now clearer to me what your doubts were about strong emergence in relation to neutral monism What you’re saying in a nutshell is that strong emergence might make neutral superfluous, since physical could just play this role by having mental as emergent from it, right? That’s a good point and I currently see only one possible escape from it. When we talk of strong emergence, do we imply A) that the emerging entity has all the properties of the domain from which it emerges plus some new (impossible to expect) ones, or do we mean B) that the entity may not even have all the properties of the domain from which it emerges?

If B), then indeed I think neutral is rendered superfluous by the recourse to strong emergence. But if A), maybe not. For if we understand strong emergence in the A) sense, and further suppose that we have physical as the basic domain from which mental emerges, we would then have to commit to the idea that mental possesses all of the properties of physical plus some new, “impossible to expect” mental ones. And maybe it is possible to argue that mental does not possess all the properties of physical; that some of the properties of mental and physical are mutually exclusive.

Then, we might suggest that mental and physical actually emerge from a neutral substance N, whose N properties they share, and without which they could not be what they are, i.e. without which they could not even emerge. But in emerging they also display properties of their own (the mutually exclusive properties), say M properties for mental and P for physical. We would then have mental as N+M and physical as N+P. M and P would refer to different sets of properties, which however would still share the essential ‘trait’ that they both emerge from substance N.

And then, possibly we might be able to account for how P emerges from N, and how differently, M also emerges from N. Given this, N would be salvaged as a substance being “neither physical nor mental”, since it lacks both P and M. It can be monistic since it only 'contains' N, from which two different types of entities (mental and physical, N+M and N+P) can emerge, and without which neither could emerge. Maybe a genuine account could be given of this double emergence from the neutral substrate.

The reason why I’m entertaining this is that I’m still doubting whether a fully reductionist program could identify our prized “crazy neutral substance”. It seems to me that we’re quite near begging the question when we say that that substance must be crazy since our enterprise itself is crazy, if you know what I mean? I don’t know, there is something about this line of reasoning that makes me uncomfortable somehow, though I can’t quite pinpoint why, and however I agree with it otherwise. Also, do you think that a fully reductionist program could accommodate the “neither” view (the neutral substance is neither mental nor physical) or would it have to accommodate the “both” view (the neutral substance is both mental and physical)? Sorry if this all sounds a bit muddled.

 

[charlatan]

It’s now clearer to me what your doubts were about strong emergence in relation to neutral monism What you’re saying in a nutshell is that strong emergence might make neutral superfluous, since physical could just play this role by having mental as emergent from it, right?

Yup, exactly!!!! Basically, it seems to me like one of the main attractions of a genuinely neutral view would be to say we could really explain the mental/physical dichotomy as coming from the properties of the neutral. If the mental/physical are more or less unpredictable from the neutral, then perhaps something less radical than neutral and more like physical+a nonreductive view of mind serves the purpose pretty well.


I see where you're going with A) and B) --- I suspect the nonreductive mind+physicalism fellas would respond like this, which I think is still a strong point against the neutral view (if there's no reductionist to neutral properties way)/ a way to close the seeming saving grace:

They'd say sure, the mental may not exhaust all the properties of the physical, but the way they're thinking, the whole world is comprised of physical stuff, but the physical stuff can have both the chemistry/physics kind of properties and the mental kind. And that brains are examples of this. In other words, instead of neutral has both N and M properties, you'd say P has both physics/chemistry and M properties.

In other words, sure like you say, mental may not include all the physical properties like weight and spin and charge:

maybe it is possible to argue that mental does not possess all the properties of physical

however, the physicalist says everything is physical, so the question is does the physical possess all the properties necessary (aka both the "traditionally physical" chemistry/physics kind and the mental kind). It's not necessary on their view that mental includes physical, so much as physical includes the mental (in addition to the more quantitative lab science stuff). They may hold that the mental cannot be predicted from the charge/weight type properties alone.

In this way they'd say the situation is exactly identical: you say you have mind can be explained in terms of a neutral substance with N and M properties, well they'd say here mind is explained by physical with both physics/chemistry and M properties both (in both cases M is strongly emergent, say).

 

[charlatan]

The reason why I’m entertaining this is that I’m still doubting whether a fully reductionist program could identify our prized “crazy neutral substance”. It seems to me that we’re quite near begging the question when we say that that substance must be crazy since our enterprise itself is crazy, if you know what I mean?

Also to get to this separately -- I mean, sure, and I'd say this is one reason physicalism is likely more popular. If you don't think you'll ever find such a crazy neutral thing, why not stop at nonreductive physicalism. It seems to be parallel to my objection, which is that if you cannot actually explain how the mental and physical arise from neutral properties, ie genuinely perform a true reduction, is the neutral superfluous? I think there we might be saying the same sort of thing. It's just I'm bringing it up as an objection to a non-reductive neutral monism program where I'm saying "OK is the neutral idea doing anything anymore if we've got all these strongly emergent unpredictable-in-principle things that suggest the mind-body problem is still kinda in full force?"
Vs you're focusing on the likelihood of a neutral reduction given the evidence.

But I guess my point is IF we really could recast the mental/physical in terms of the neutral, in a true explanatory reductive fashion, that would really sell the neutral view as not excessive/unnecessary.

As to whether we can, I'm undecided. I mean, I'm not sure if we'll solve the mind-body problem.. I think there's no reason to believe any of the approaches as of now is close to doing it. From this POV, I want to remain open to crazy solutions, while acknowledging they're crazy and thus at least apparently unlikely to work.


There's also another point which is our epistemic limits vs ontological truth --- maybe WE cannot figure out the mind/physics-to-neutral reduction but can somehow show one exists, and that our cognitive faculties are unlikely to discover the details of it. Of course bringing this up signs my death warrant to the epistemic optimist a-la-Deutsch who would say there's no reason to think we can't discover a truth. But I want to still mention the possibility for anyone not committed to that kind of optimism.

 

[charlatan]

BTW, still, the physicalism that accommodates the mental in a nonreductive way is committed to the idea that there's more to the physical than the mathematics. In this sense, it is still a kind of neutral view itself -- it's saying there's more to the physical world than mathematics, that somehow what the mathematics is referring to has a nature that isn't purely mathematical. That is, the nature is neither purely mental nor mathematical. BUT it's still physical because if you really understand what the mathematics refers to, ie understand what spin, charge, etc REALLY are (not just formal measurements using a measuring device) the experientiality is part of the mix.

 

[James]

it's saying there's more to the physical world than mathematics

Reminds me of Buckminster Fuller

 

[charlatan]

Let me mention, as my exhausting style dictates I do so: what of the suggestion that maybe reality is made of the neutral, and maybe it doesn't solve the mystery of mind-body because there's still strong emergence, aka something mysterious/unpredictable-in-principle going on.
We'd have to accept it, right? I mean if that's what reality is like?

I'd say sure, though

- this is a different issue, as my discussion is all about what we have reason to expect from the standpoint of explanatory power, not about a possible eventual brute fact that may happen to force the neutral view on us

- Still, it's a bit of a challenge what that would look like. That is, given the very concept of mind-physics neutrality is itself made from an attempt to get rid of the dichotomy, it's hard to imagine what a solution that is neutral without truly addressing that dichotomy would look like.

However, I can think of the following funny case: say there's a substance that's at the bedrock of reality that HAS NO mental/physical description in many configurations of it (no mental or mathematical properties), and that some configurations of it (parallel to some configurations of brain having mental aspects) do have mental/physical descriptions, which are strongly emergent in some situations/configurations. Then sure, that would be an instance of neutral monism with strong emergence.

We have no reason to worry about that case, as evidence strongly dictates all of reality has a mathematical aspect to it, thus is nicely termed physical sans some greater explanatory power to neutrality, but it is possible and thus I will acknowledge it

 

[charlatan]

Oooh ooh but, here's one middle case where neutral would offer explanatory power with something basically like strong emergence: suppose a neutral view explained the emergence of mind/physical, but the concrete details of the mind/physical must be experienced (in case of mind) or measured (in case of the physical).

That would still be good enough to support neutral monism. Just to show this isn't just an empty idea, it's kind of like saying the wavefunction explains the emergence of quantum phenomena, but one still has to make measurements in a tangible way to say certain things about them. So for example, you may know what the possible outcomes of an experiment are using the equations/theory, but you need to ask your experimentalist friend if you need to know the outcome of a particular experiment.

I'm not sure this is truly strong emergence (really depends on your concept of it) because you are predicting the emergence of mind/physical from the neutral by saying there's an explanation. But you're predicting it in generality, not in specific. You couldn't know what the apple tastes like without tasting it -- that part would be unpredictable. But you could predict there would BE something sort of like taste, maybe.

There's also an even-more intermediate position, where you say you couldn't have predicted physical/mind from the neutral without seeing the configurations where the neutral actually assembles to the physical/mental. But once you saw them, you could explain what's going on. I think this is viable too+probably preserves the spirit of strong emergence more.



Let's examine how this body of views fares against a nonreductive physical view:

- Certainly isn't worse, except on the charge that if it doesn't do better, the neutral is theoretically superfluous beyond the possibility that a brute fact may force us to acknowledge the possibility.

- Is there any reason to suspect it would have more explanatory potential of the sort of this post than the nonreductive physical would? I can't see it for the following reason: all you're doing is saying there may be a substance that has no mental or physical properties in certain configurations. Whereas already in nonreductive physical you're saying the physical may go well beyond the mathematical nature -- that the referents of the mathematical characterization have all the fancier characteristics built in. From this POV, there's enough neutrality built into the nonreductive physical view that I'm not sure there's any reason to move to the neutral beyond the genuine possibility of reduction.



So in the end, I still feel like I come to the idea that from the standpoint of likely theoretical power, a genuinely reductive neutral monism sounds the best.

 

[charlatan]

I think at this point I need a tl;dr summary to help be a guide to my other posts so @Ren etc have something to go off of!! I think out loud, so it gets verbose, but here's the key stuff:

- reality could be neutral, despite it not illuminating the mind-body problem more than a nonreductive physicalism pov, and in that case of course we acknowledge it even if it didn't serve our purpose

- however, from a theoretical power standpoint, I can't so far see any reason to expect any advantage to a truly nonphysicalist neutral pov if it doesn't perform genuine reduction. This is because the nonreductive physical already has enough apparent neutrality built in by saying the nature of the physical may be more than mathematical -- that when we quantify charge, mass, spin, etc, we logically fix what we're talking about, but it's kind of like saying "the man who lives upstairs" -- that fixes what we're talking of without telling us all the properties. The full meaning of mass/spin etc may explain why there's a mental aspect.

- on the A) pov, I think the nonreductive physicalist simply says I don't need for the mental to have physical properties -- I say all reality is physical, so I need the physical to have both the mathematical and mental properties, which I hold it does (evidence = all the mental correlates of brain activity + the fact that all substances we've ever seen have a mathematical measurable side.)

- I might agree nonphysicalist neutral wackiness might be unlikely to work, but basically all approaches so far seem to get nowhere, so this isn't much of a strike against as a lack of strike for

- if you don't think reduction to neutral is possible, I cannot resist saying you likely don't have reason to favor neutral nonphysicalism over physicalist monism with nonreductive pov on mind.

 

[Ren]

Well @charlatan it's a lovely Ne meteor shower that you offered us there.

I'll read this when I get home and try to get back to you tonight as well.

 

[Ren]

I think at this point I need a tl;dr summary to help be a guide to my other posts so @Ren etc have something to go off of!! I think out loud, so it gets verbose, but here's the key stuff:

- reality could be neutral, despite it not illuminating the mind-body problem more than a nonreductive physicalism pov, and in that case of course we acknowledge it even if it didn't serve our purpose

- however, from a theoretical power standpoint, I can't so far see any reason to expect any advantage to a truly nonphysicalist neutral pov if it doesn't perform genuine reduction. This is because the nonreductive physical already has enough apparent neutrality built in by saying the nature of the physical may be more than mathematical -- that when we quantify charge, mass, spin, etc, we logically fix what we're talking about, but it's kind of like saying "the man who lives upstairs" -- that fixes what we're talking of without telling us all the properties. The full meaning of mass/spin etc may explain why there's a mental aspect.

- on the A) pov, I think the nonreductive physicalist simply says I don't need for the mental to have physical properties -- I say all reality is physical, so I need the physical to have both the mathematical and mental properties, which I hold it does (evidence = all the mental correlates of brain activity + the fact that all substances we've ever seen have a mathematical measurable side.)

- I might agree nonphysicalist neutral wackiness might be unlikely to work, but basically all approaches so far seem to get nowhere, so this isn't much of a strike against as a lack of strike for

- if you don't think reduction to neutral is possible, I cannot resist saying you likely don't have reason to favor neutral nonphysicalism over physicalist monism with nonreductive pov on mind.

I’ll try to keep my thoughts concise so we can ensure that the conversation may continue unimpeded

I understand where you’re coming from. You’re saying that a nonreductionist neutral monist programme wouldn’t do anything more in terms of explanatory potential that physicalist monism can do, and so there’s no reason to favour it. Based on this, you think that if neutral monism is to hold real promise as a metaphysical theory, it must aim for a genuinely reductionist approach.

Let’s take a moment to look at this reductionist approach. In principle it is coherent. But so far I don’t see what else we have managed to say about it. Do you think we would be able (sooner or later) to steer the discussion towards what the reduced neutral substrate could be? Do we have examples in mind that could be discussed, even at the most abstract level imaginable? It would be interesting to start thinking about that.

Now, regarding the nonreductionist approach. I agree with you that if neutral does not have more explanatory power than physicalist monism, then there’s no reason to favour it. This brings me to two further observations. The first is to say that though under such circumstances it ought not to be favored, maybe it can still exist as an alternative to physicalist monism for somebody who considers that physicalist monism is stricken by internal contradictions. The second is to suggest that it may gain the upper hand if we could find one single argument (outside of internal incoherence) against the physicalist monist programme. At times your posts – and I’m sure you will contest this! – sound almost as if you’re saying: “Well, physicalist monism was there first, and there are more people who subscribe to it, so it may have this implicit upper hand.” But why should it?

I can think of possible arguments against the coherence of physicalist monism, excluding the question of internal consistency. The first is to suggest that physical with mental properties is quite simply no longer physical, but either A) Neutral under the “both” view or B) A species of property dualism. The second is to suggest that experience intuitively contradicts the idea that the basic substrate is physical (with or without “mental properties” added, which – again – would arguably render the substrate itself non-physical). Say I experience a feeling of nostalgia. What’s the basic physical substrate from which the mental phenomenon emerges with all the properties of that physical substrate + its own mental properties? Brain states? So the experience of the feeling of nostalgia contains the physical properties of brain states plus the emergent mental properties. I don’t know – something about this sounds counter-intuitive to me.

Lastly, there is the question of what (prepare for an unlikely reference) Roger Scruton has called the “aboutness” of thought. His argument is to say: maybe physical can explain that we have thoughts, i.e. patterns of brain states activating patterns of thinking. But it does not seem to be at all able to explain what those thoughts are about. So for instance, maybe a person’s brain state could explain that a person has a certain feeling of nostalgia (to me, this is already problematic, but let’s assume it can). But can it explain what the feeling of nostalgia is about – is aboutness? I have difficulty envisaging that physical properties of brain states could in any way explain the qualitative content of phenomenal experiences, even with recourse to the concept of emergence.

Maybe there is something about neutral which could both facilitate the explanatory path to physical properties and these kinds of seemingly irreducible “mental” properties. Because these two kinds of entities (physical and mental) do seem to have something in common. Maybe that thing that they have in common could do a good job of explaining the path to physical, and on the other hand, the path to mental, like two modes of the same substance. Maybe here also, we could begin thinking of examples.

 

[charlatan]

So the experience of the feeling of nostalgia contains the physical properties of brain states plus the emergent mental properties.

Well to this I'd once again say, the physicalist of the nonreductive variety would say it goes the other way: the *physical* contains both the feeling of nostalgia and the mathematical/spin/charge quantifiable aspects.

And if you really think about this, the motivation for this is quite clear: unless you think the physical world really is just some kind of abstract mathematical structure, why might it not be the case that there are other properties to be learned of it, which are experiential?

At times your posts – and I’m sure you will contest this! – sound almost as if you’re saying: “Well, physicalist monism was there first, and there are more people who subscribe to it, so it may have this implicit upper hand.” But why should it?

{actually an addendum lol -- I'm not really a physicalist myself -- I might end up closer to some kind of dualism to be very honest. but I'm not sure yet....I'm open to nonreductive varieties of physicalism and am trying to defend them where I think defense is due....so I'm SURE you can cast away that impression you have}

IDK where you got this honestly so let me just say yup, I don't think I'm saying that (but we can just focus on specific things I say and deal with issues as they come up)-- indeed, what I'm saying is under what circumstances the neutral type would have any explanatory power that the physicalist one doesn't (this says nothing about whether the physicalist one is itself plausible! e.g. what about some kind of nonphysicalist dualism!). And the main point is the physicalist approach (if nonreductive) is already accommodating what the neutral otherwise would, by distancing from the view that the abstract mathematical properties you get from writing equations that model spacetime/etc really capture the full nature of the physical world -- that the fact we can touch and feel and so on is also an aspect of it. Why is this surprising, given we think of the physical world as empirical, not just an abstract mathematical structure?

And BTW I haven't ruled out the neutral POV in favor of the physicalist one -- I just say the value in it seems to be much stronger if it really proposes to explain the mental's/physical's emergence rather than cite strong emergence.

Do we have examples in mind that could be discussed, every at the most abstract level imaginable? It would be interesting to start thinking about that.[

{addendum -- I think I thought of one/see post below/ at the abstract level -- ie general information-is-the-bedrock-of-reality views .... but the stuff about if we'll learn the concrete details is still up for grabs...the skepticism I express below can be understood to address whether we'll really learrn the concrete details}

Honestly, no! I have a hard time even imagining how it could be carried out. However, I also have my doubts whether our cognitive faculties can think in neutral terms. If there are some truths we learn by experience (like the taste of salt or whatever) that can't be deduced from logic alone, it's not that surprising that perhaps we'd have a hard time imagining the neutral.

But at the same time, that might be our limitation rather than a limitation of the neutral view itself. And further, like I've said, I think our progress on mind-body is pretty young -- if we're EVER going to explain it, beyond postulating a sort of 'brute fact' like strong emergence, unpredictable even in principle, I'd think it's quite reasonable to imagine a neutral pov being the way we finally do it.

The way I see it, the alternative to explaining the mind-body problem is to solve it just empirically. That is, we don't get WHY some physical states are accompanied by consciousness but we can predict when it happens. That would be a situation very compatible with some sort of nonreductive physicalism. I hate this sort of thing, I like a real explanation, but I do feel it could come to this.

species of property dualism.

Yeah, so I've never been clear exactly where the bounds for this lie, as you always get theorists accusing each other of being some variety of dualist regardless their stated views, but I do think nonreductive varieties of physicalism can basically flirt with property dualism-esque ideas, whether or not officially endorsing them, whether they like it or not, but not substance dualism. This is obvious from the word nonreductive.

The first is to suggest that physical with mental properties is quite simply no longer physical,

Well sure you could say that -- but I guess this isn't obvious to me at all yet if you look at this this way--- why shouldn't an *empirical* reality not have properties that we encounter in an experiential sense? It seems very natural to me that experience would be part of the physical world, if you don't view the physical as an abstract structure.

In fact, maybe the more "rigid" physicalists are the one who have it wrong/view the physical in an overly mathematical or computational lens. I don't honestly think much of the eliminative types on the mind-body problem. I've never felt most of them have a better reason than thinking "meh, mind sounds like magical hogwash--let's stick with things we can calculate" despite seriously trying to find good arguments from them.

 

[charlatan]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but my impression seems to be that you /find nonreductive varieties of physicalism weirder than nonreductive varieties of neutral. THAT is where I'm a bit confused!!!

To me, the idea that you can't really recast mental or physical in fundamentally new neutral nonphysicalist terms from the ground up SCREAMS that some kind of nonreductive physicalism might be correct OR that some kind of dualism may be. The fact that the latter is included in my mind is why I strongly think there's a misunderstanding if you think I'm saying we should go with the physicalist view because it has many subscribers.

 

[charlatan]

I also realized why you were confused if I was just suggesting nonreductive physicalism on account of it already being well-subscribed to --- probably this is because I never made a positive defense of it, and was only describing why I think a neutral nonphysicalist monism wouldn't seem (unless you could really fundamentally recast mental/physical in terms of neutral, not have to deal with something like strong emergence that prevents a robust recasting) to be much improvement.

This is especially important to address if you find nonreductive physicalism odder than some kind of neutral view....I now realize you're asking why this view is plausible of its own right. Note that strictly speaking, saying Y is no improvement over X doesn't say X is worthy itself, but for now let's see why X = nonreductive physicalism is not so crazy.

And my answer, on top of the evidence that correlates events in the language of quantifiable physics with events in the mental realm with shocking accuracy, is simply that I don't think it's too reasonable to object that experience wouldn't likely be part of an empirical world in a robust (noneliminative) way. It's actually more counterintuitive if it isn't there than if it is, really. The very way we measure balls rolling down inclined planes seems to be through experience plus mathematics. Sure we use mathematics to quantify it, but how would we even conceptualize the physical world as different from any of the other mathematics we do if there weren't an experiential dimension to it?
Why wouldn't it just be one particular mathematical structure we contemplate?

 

[charlatan]

On a different note, I actually came up with a good answer to what neutral monism could abstractly look like, your original question: one of those information-is-reality views. Which views mental and physical as just different kinds of information, and where there's no reason they exhaust what reality information might be like.

Information is suitably neutral.

Keep in mind that I'm so far open to the possibility that the neutral view may be the best explanation of reality, but we may not ever come to the details of it. If we ever explain mind-body as a nonmystery, which I'm unsure if we will, I'd not be surprised if some information-theoretic neutral pov works.

 

[charlatan]

Sorry to add to the shower but let me keep addressing points as they occur to me -- this one's reallly important to straighten out:

What’s the basic physical substrate from which the mental phenomenon emerges with all the properties of that physical substrate + its own mental properties? Brain states? So the experience of the feeling of nostalgia contains the physical properties of brain states plus the emergent mental properties.

I think it's important to note that there are two very separate claims you could get from what you're saying: the former is whether a physical substrate could have both quantitative and qualitative properties (which you'd hold to in nonreductive physicalism) VS your latter statement asks if *mental* properties by themselves already contain the quantitative ones embedded.

The view in nonreductive physicalism that strikes me as reasonable isn't the latter -- the latter seems ridiculous. The former, however, that there's a part of the physical world that actually "feels like" something experientially AND there's an aspect to it that you can measure, quantify, and so on as we do in lab science .. seems far from off to me!

If anything, I start fearing reductive physicalism looks too much like computationalism, basically the view that reality is just some kind of software or mathematical structure with absolutely no experiential aspect to it whatever.

Lastly, there is the question of what (prepare for an unlikely reference) Roger Scruton has called the “aboutness” of thought. His argument is to say: maybe physical can explain that we have thoughts

And again, the nonreductive varieties of physicalism aren't trying to "do away" with the robust aboutness of thought like the reductive kinds are, which basically say there's nothing more to say than quantifying charge, spin, etc --- there's no further thing to be learned in actually tasting salt and feeling that your thoughts are about salt.

The only question is if you think there BEING a robustly experiential side to the physical world is weird, or if you think it's reasonable that sure you can measure stuff in test tubes, but there's also an experiential quality even to that process.

If you think that's reasonable, a nonreductive physicalism ain't so weird anymore.


(for other intellectual reasons I might ultimately endorse some kind of dualism ultimately -- haven't made my mind up....but I do think nonreductive varieties of physicalism are formidable/have intuitive force.)

 

[Ren]

Hey @charlatan, cheers for the always great inputs Again, this might take me a while to process, and I'm travelling today so might not get the chance to answer before tomorrow. I look forward to it and I hope I can do justice to your innumerable insights.

 

[charlatan]

Mhmmm. Great
I think at least it's reasonably clear where we are right now, after all the barrage (I really like to offer summaries to help, since my posts are so scattered):

- I'm trying to suggest to you a POV from which nonreductive physicalism (ie one with robust mind) isn't either a sort of contradiction by including robust mental states or lacking in intuitive force (reason: if the physical is not just the mathematical, and is in some sense empirical, why not expect a robust role of 'observation/experience/mind' ie when certain bodies of particles interact with others, why is it so weird that it "feels like something")
- I'm reminding that certainly the reductive varieties of physicalism that do away with mind are likely inferior to pretty much any neutral variety as I've never seen good arguments for them so far at least
- One abstract version of neutral monism would be an information-is-fundamental/more-so-than-physics (and mind/physical are special cases, so the bedrock is neutral)...without committing to being able to discover the concrete details of it in our particular world, depending on our cognitive faculties. That is, I'd still say the neutral POV has force if WE can't discover some kind of fundamental way to recast/explain fully mind/physical's emergence from the neutral....but if there exists such an explanation (not just a kind of brute fact).
- The intuitive reason a neutral POV without really predicting mind/physical from the neutral (or at least in principle being able to do so) seems less plausible to me than nonreductive physicalism is here it seems (by virtue of total strong emergence) closer to a brute fact to accept that mind/physical are related in the way they are....so this intuitively suggests some kind of physicalism with strong emergence
- An important subtlety: if we can pretty much fully explain WHY mind+physical as categories emerge from the neutral, but can only fully know the details of a mental state by experiencing it, that would still be acceptable motivation for the neutral POV -- this would count as predicting that mind emerges without predicting what it's like to eat salt without actually eating salt. So it wouldn't be that mind is fully unpredictable, only somewhat so. Only a case where the neutrality seems to be doing virtually nothing explanatory of the mental or physical are the ones I'm resistant to --- if the mind-physical relation seems to still be a brute fact (not just undiscoverable by us but undiscoverable in principle), I'd more or less say that points to nonreductive physicalism.
Particularly if the ONLY reason one resists nonreductive physicalism /pushes for neutral monism in such a situation is a squeamishness with the very coherence or plausibility of nonreductive physicalism, I daresy it's worth noting all my reasons why the idea doesn't really seem super incoherent or implausible.

- Also this last point has a lot of intuitive force -- we usually think of physical facts as the ultimate brute facts. Physics is basically synonymous with brute facts in the sense that we can explain chemistry in terms of physics but physics is rock bottom, where if there's anything we can't explain further, it would have to be it. To say there's no way you could predict mind+physical would emerge from the neutral strikes me as very close to saying it's just a brute fact (and not just to US seemingly a brute fact, but to anyone, whatever their cognitive faculties).

(with this last clarification, I suspect we might be very close to each other?)

 

[Ren]

Right, let's get back to this charlie

(with this last clarification, I suspect we might be very close to each other?)

Yeah, I think we are. But above all I think I've got a good grasp of your standpoint and its subtleties now. I'm going to try to boil it down so what remains in terms of 'disagreement' will be in plain sight.

In essence you're saying that if one is to conceive of a monist universe, and of – broadly speaking – two main possible approaches to it, one reductive and one nonreductive, then: 1) physical is more compelling from a nonreductive standpoint, while 2) neutral is more compelling from a reductive standpoint, though what physical-mental would be reduced to is still up for grabs, and might lie beyond the limits of human cognition anyway. In the nonreductive realm, 1) is more compelling because it has more intuitive explanatory power than neutral here, as there's no reason not to conceive of physical as possessing 'experiential' properties in its basic substrate. Whatever way we look at it, physical can do what neutral would promise to do within a nonreductive approach, so where neutral can really make a difference is in 2), particularly in view of the obvious shortcomings of a purely reductive form of physicalist monism.

From the previous paragraph it follows not necessarily that nonreductive neutral monism is wrong, but that the weight of evidence and intuitive reasoning from empirical observation does not favour it over nonreductive physicalism. So perhaps, to paraphrase Leibniz, there is no sufficient reason to believe that nonreductive neutral monism is the monist project worthy of being further explored, because the alternative of nonreductive physicalism seems prima facie to promise better results. On the other hand, reductive neutral monism seems worthy of further exploration because it doesn't really have obvious 'competitors' in the reductive realm, so to speak. The main obstacle it faces is not the reductive mental or reductive physical threat, but rather whether it can be, as it were, 'given flesh' to move beyond its status as a mere abstraction.

If the above is a rough yet correct sketch of what you defend, I think we agree on pretty much everything except one thing. And it is that one point we don't (seem to) agree on that could make it seem as if we disagreed about more than just that thing, while in fact we don't. And this point is about the nature of the empirical:

Why shouldn't an *empirical* reality not have properties that we encounter in an experiential sense? It seems very natural to me that experience would be part of the physical world, if you don't view the physical as an abstract structure.

It seems to me that here you conflate 'empirical reality' with 'physical world'. I understand this move but I guess this is the one point where I'm not in complete agreement with you. Doesn't 'empirical reality' presuppose 'the physical world as experienced?' - To me, it's almost as if you were saying: « It seems reasonable to assume the physical as experienced can accommodate experience”, rather than “It seems reasonable to assume the physical can accommodate experience.” And I think you can do that because you conflate empirical reality with the physical world.

But maybe someone could say: “Empirical reality is not the physical world per se, but the neutral world experienced as physico-mental. The empirical presupposes the physical but the physical does not presuppose the empirical.” You could say in answer that this only negatively bolsters the case of nonreductive neutral monism, which is now ontologically protected in a kind of artificial way by an epistemological shield. Maybe this is true. But in a sense, you also use an epistemological shield when you say that our cognitive capacities might not be equipped to grasp a basic neutral substance which may nevertheless exist as an ontological reality. So if one path can be entertained, the other might as well. It might all boil down, I think, to a question not of ontology, but of epistemology.

Now let me finish by saying this: I do not find nonreductive varieties of physicalism weirder than nonreductive varieties of neutral. I think I have simply embraced that idea just for the sake of argument and gaining new insights from the objections that have followed. I'm ultimately a bit like you – struggling to completely shake off the lingering notion that a species of dualism might still be the solution. In a sense I would really want neutral monism to emerge (no pun intended) as an alternative. It has such simple, crystalline beauty. Unless it's a crazy substance, I guess!

So feel free to take apart my points. I'm here to learn, and I'm only trying to keep the discussion lively and substantial. Maybe I'll soon be in complete agreement with you. In the end I'm just a continental guy exploring uncharted territory thanks to you and wolly

On a different note, I actually came up with a good answer to what neutral monism could abstractly look like, your original question: one of those information-is-reality views. Which views mental and physical as just different kinds of information, and where there's no reason they exhaust what reality information might be like.

Information is suitably neutral.

Keep in mind that I'm so far open to the possibility that the neutral view may be the best explanation of reality, but we may not ever come to the details of it. If we ever explain mind-body as a nonmystery, which I'm unsure if we will, I'd not be surprised if some information-theoretic neutral pov works.

Sounds great. I agree that information might be a good candidate. I'll let my Ni circle around it for the next few days.

 

[charlatan]

Great, @Ren: so here's what things seem to come down to: you don't find it self-evident that the physical world should have an empirical component. I think I presented an important point in that direction to be considered that might be missed:

Sure, maybe the physical has no empirical component at all. Maybe, as you fear, the idea of thinking it natural that it would have such a component is just presupposing what the physical world is like.

But here's my take on that:

- First, perhaps less importantly, I can equally say to you there's no good reason to suppose the physical wouldn't have experience. So at best we'd be at a stand-still, and that already gets us to dissolving the idea that mind-body is a mystery. Unless you have some positive reason to think it weird that the physical has an experiential component, there's no mystery. Sure, we may not know the details of it yet, but there's no reason to complain, so to speak on this view.

- Now to take this further, sure the physical might not have had an empirical component: but if there's one thing we know about the physical that differentiates it from virtually all of our other knowledge, such as mathematical knowledge, it's that the physical's nature is not given to us by deduction from axioms alone. There is SOME concept called "we need to go out and look at the evidence."

So my basic point is -- sure there could be something called a physical world (maybe we call the number 3 the physical world!) without a concept of observation, but once again remember we're trying to claim there's something weird or mysterious about the physical world having experience in it -- yet do we have any positive concept differentiating it from an abstract mathematical structure besides this "here we need to go out and look" component vs with the mathematics you can just deduce it from axioms?

If not, how does it make sense to call it mysterious that the physical world has mind in it? From this point of view, I'm basically saying "if you're even here talking about the physical, it shouldn't be surprising to you that there's an empirical component if you literally have no concept of what physical information is apart from it -- instead, you should find out the NATURE of the connection between experience and the physical world....not think experience is weird/has no place there."

So it's not that I'm just arbitrarily conflating the physical with the empirical -- it's more like I think it's totally the wrong question to ask why experience accompanies the physical if (Unlike say with a mathematical abstract structure) you can't really conceive of what else the physical might be apart from something known empirically eg if a rock is not something you process as having some tactile qualities, it would just be an abstract mathematical entity it seems. Your (general you) job is rather to find out what the connection is between empirical and physical, not to ask "why is there this connection when it seems like the 2 realms should be on different planets?!" Or at least, "why is there this connection" would then amount to "why is there a physical world at all?!" pretty much -- NOT given there's a physical world, why is there experience...

 

[charlatan]

I'm ultimately a bit like you – struggling to completely shake off the lingering notion that a species of dualism might still be the solution.

Also, I have not much problem with dualism, BTW. I mean, even Mr. Quine admitted mathematical objects into his ontology as different from the physical. I think it's pretty reasonable to consider that maybe we shouldn't explain these things away -- even if we can get rid of mind-physical dualism, we haven't gotten rid of mathematics.

So why fear mind-physical dualism so much if we don't fear physical-mathematical! Is there any reason apart from people having an irrational stigma about wanting to do away with mind because it has been associated with superstition? Why not just not fall into superstition but call it what it is?

Now some DO fear the physical-mathematical, so that's fair at least. But my point is I find it weird when some of these uber-physicalists like Quine admit of one but not the other, and I suspect they're ultimately wrong.

I'm much more sympathetic to someone who worries about both, not just one.