Charlatan & Wolly Green's fascinating philosophy fair

[wolly.green]

To be clear -- I never held that they don't exist + said I thought you might, but not that you definitely were.



I'm very confused. Saying we were wrong about some (even major) things doesn't mean we weren't right about anything? Even if some of the mistakes were big? As someone who holds to reason advancing by criticism/error, I'm not understanding why this would bother you this much. We fix our mistakes and move on?

The only scenario I mentioned that I'd understand bothering you is the one where the mathematics works but we were wrong about what's underlying. However, I stated that as a worst case scenario, hardly committing to the idea as definitely right or something. Also, it's definitely something I could imagine as the response a neutral type might give, which is why I mentioned it.

Last, but not least, who is to say our scientific theories AREN'T describing mind-physical neutral entitles already in some sense? That is, entities a Russellian type would agree exist, but which they wouldn't agree are physical (in the sense of a philosophical position about the mind-physical divide)? Like perhaps the brain isn't physical, it's mind-physical neutral. And that we've gotten some of its properties right but they're emergent and we'll discover the more intrinsic ones later?

In this last case, we'd NOT be discovering that we were totally wrong, UNLESS we committed to science discovering entities that aren't mind-physical neutral.

There are just so many variations to go through before I'd totally rule this idea out.

Again, there is just too much to be said. Your second paragraph is literally a misunderstanding of all the points i've tried to make up until this point. Not that this is your fault. We could make a forum about epistemology if you like?

 

[charlatan]

Again, there is just too much to be said. Your very first paragraph is literally a misunderstanding of all the points i've tried to make up until this point. Not that this is your fault

Well here's the issue -- you say I think all our knowledge is wrong up to this point. I'm not even holding to that. I don't even think neutral-monism is true necessarily.

What I do think is we've corrected some errors in our process doing science, and that this wouldn't imply that our theories are just wrong or something. There's a line between parts being wrong and all being wrong.

I just think there's some disconnect here because I'm really not committed to our theories just being wrong.

 

[wolly.green]

Well here's the issue -- you say I think all our knowledge is wrong up to this point. I'm not even holding to that. I don't even think neutral-monism is true necessarily.

What I do think is we've corrected some errors in our process doing science, and that this wouldn't imply that our theories are just wrong or something. There's a line between parts being wrong and all being wrong.

I just think there's some disconnect here because I'm really not committed to our theories just being wrong.

You misread what I said. Look, Ill say it one more time. Im willing to have a discussion about epistemology, but not here. Since that would lead us too far afield.

 

[charlatan]

You misread what I said. Look, Ill say it one more time. Im willing to have a discussion about epistemology, but not here. Since that would lead us too far from our original discussion.

I doubt I misread you. At most I didn't paraphrase it exactly right, but here's what you said

What you have basically said is that our old theories are just wrong. End of discussion.

And I just don't hold to this. At least, not unless you think having made mistakes in our theories +needing to revise them means they're all wrong.


If you'd like to start a new thread, I'm happy to continue there!

 

[charlatan]

I hope you meant a thread, not forum, @wolly.green

I'm up for the former, though.

 

[wolly.green]

I hope you meant a thread, not forum, @wolly.green

I'm up for the former, though.

I'll work on collating our discussion so we can move on from there. It will probably take me a few hours.

 

[charlatan]

I'll work on collating our discussion so we can move on from there. It will probably take me a few hours.

Sounds good. Something I hope you'll keep in mind en route to facilitate -- I'm just a little worried if part of the problem here isn't simply that you think I'm not acknowledging there's a difference between revising our knowledge critically and a radical thesis that says all the things we thought to exist don't exist (ie what you'd say neutral-monism is saying). I totally get that. But given all I was asserting is that we revise our knowledge, with the rest just tentative could-be claims, wasn't sure why you felt I thought our old theories are wrong.

 

[charlatan]

FWIW I'm cool either way -- could continue in another thread, or adjourn, or whatever! I mean, I fully understand if this winds up being too large a discussion or whatever.

In case the latter is what people prefer, I guess the summary is just a guess that neutral-monism isn't readily/automatically in such deep tension with science (even if it turns out to be an untenable view for various reasons), precisely because I don't think the process of doing science must commit one to a non-neutral physical ontology. In particular, the whole point of the neutral monist view might be that you can answer questions like "in what sense is spacetime comprised of neutral stuff." That is, to reduce the supposedly physical to the neutral in some sense, and again, if one were committed to old science ultimately describing the physical, sure this would be problematic -- you'd be saying you're reducing stuff that doesn't really exist to something that does, which plausibly doesn't make sense. In other words, one could say science is describing reality, but not a reality committed to the existence of physical objects in a sense of physical buying into the mind-physical dichotomy.

I also don't really think it matters for this discussion if one thinks we made mistakes in science that we corrected or if we just expanded our theories, because neither of these implies a kind of view that says we literally discard our old theories as describing bullshit that doesn't exist. I think the confusion sprung because I was worried if what was being taken issue with is the idea that if you reduce X to Y, does X still exist and all -- as we do with maybe chemistry to physics or less-fundamental to more-fundamental physics. That's because one could see aspects of neutral monism as a reductionist program, and I was wondering what was being taken issue with/guessing maybe it was this though it turned out to not be it.

Not sure if this addresses the points made, but I think it at least accurately sums up why I was skeptical if there was such a problem with the neutral view readily. I think there are better ways to attack it than to say that we can't reconcile old scientific theories with it.

 

[Happy Phantom]

You guys are adorable. :heartu:

 

[ZcM4xzkjgzCjytBc]

Charlatan & Wolly Green's fascinating philosophy *affair

 

[Ren]

@wolly.green and @charlatan

I think a defender of neutral monism might argue that mental and physical entities are strongly emergent from the neutral substance. If we accept that emergent entities have real existence, then neutral monism could make room for mental and physical entities having real (emergent) existence.

Where things seem to get tough is when attempts are made to actually define what the neutral substance is. I briefly looked at the literature and it appears that neutral monists can’t agree on this. It’s true that if nothing whatsoever can be said about the substance from which physical and mental entities “emerge”, then this seriously weakens the neutral monist case by scientific standards.

The further issue seems to be that every time a neutral monist has attempted to propose a basic datum, it has either seemed suspiciously physicalist – the brain states or “energies” of Russell – or mentalist, in panqualityism (qualia being the basic units). Not only that, but these attempts have all been reductionist, and I don’t see how reductionism could accommodate strong emergence.

To me this suggests the following paradox: for neutral monism to be defensible, it would need to make room for emergence. But every attempt that has been made to say something about the neutral substance has been reductionist, i.e. ruling out emergence, and often associated with either mentalism or physicalism.

All that being said, maybe there is a way to resolve this paradox that we have not yet envisioned. Neutral monism seems to be experiencing a resurgence, so we’ll see where that leads.

 

[charlatan]

I think a defender of neutral monism might argue that mental and physical entities are strongly emergent from the neutral substance

Not only that, but these attempts have all been reductionist, and I don’t see how reductionism could accommodate strong emergence.

I think that's possible; it's also possible some would opt for ordinary emergence, not strong, i.e. reductionistic in nature, but it would only be particularly interesting to me if the reduction were to genuinely neutral entities. If you're reducing the mental to physical or the other way around, that seems a bit silly (why even adopt neutral monism then).

But my thing is I'm not sure why one would want to necessarily (sure, possibly) accommodate strong emergence if committed to neutral monism. Why not genuinely reduce the mental/physical to the neutral (NOT reduce one to the other)? If anything, I'd say that would be the most successful program to carry out period, as it would genuinely convince one of "out with the mental, out with the physical, in with the neutral".
A neutral monist program accommodating strong emergence sounds, if anything, more controversial to me.
It may be necessary if we decide strong emergence is definitely a thing (mind is the most obvious candidate one might think of for this) -- which of course many would deny (some like Quine would go the extreme of saying out with mental entirely).

Where things seem to get tough is when attempts are made to actually define what the neutral substance is. I briefly looked at the literature and it appears that neutral monists can’t agree on this. It’s true that if nothing whatsoever can be said about the substance from which physical and mental entities “emerge”, then this seriously weakens the neutral monist case by scientific standards

My perspective here is that the lack of progress in identifying evidence for how neutral substances look more concretely in our world doesn't seem to either help or hurt the case for neutral monism, precisely because no other attempt seems anywhere close to identifying credible evidence-involving explanation for how mind/physical relate... basically we're at the infancy stage for that part, so it seems hard to judge almost any well thought out approach too harshly on the basis of concrete progress. There are brute facts as to brain states corresponding to mind states, but no explanation as to when else you can expect mind states to arise in nature that seems particularly credible right now.

The evidence right now seems about at 0, and the question really is which is the best theoretical position as of now, at least. Kind of like with quantum gravity/string theory -- still in the totally theory phase. Now, of course we actually describe the properties of strings pretty specifically in our theories, so this may bother you about the analogy, but it's totally irrelevant to my point at least, as you'll see below.

Now, you might be referring to the case where nothing ever can be said concretely of the neutral. You're right this would kill its appeal from a science POV. Though if all other approaches continue like now, they'd also die from a science pov. So I'd defer to the 'too early to say'.

Based on the nature of the mental/physical as we get them, though, we can at least ask what the nature of the relation between them is philosophically, even if we cannot yet give concrete properties of ze neutral thing. One philosophical answer to the age-old Descartes conundrum involves neutrality/I think saying the nature of reality must be neutral is an interesting claim that a priori needn't need much data! Maybe it does, but it does seem that we're asking a pretty general metaphysical question. It seems respectable to conjecture as to the relations between other objects of metaphysical consideration like numbers vs physical objects on the basis of their natures, not as much on empirical evidence, so perhaps the same is so here. At least I'd want to hear a very strong reason why one way or another before I leaned either way.

In fact, it may be that in any world such as ours, neutrality must be a better explanation than the others for some reason, but that the specific neutral properties can differ world to world (kind of like our world has very specific laws of physics). From this point of view, not having evidence for what the concrete specifics are of neutral substances in our world would matter almost not at all in deciding for/against the neutral monism view, it would seem.

Further, especially if you don't believe we'll ever explain the mind-physical apparent dichotomy, as even some prominent thinkers still do (including Witten the string theorist, I think), it's a totally respectable answer to say on philosophical grounds, the strongest arguments favor neutrality, even if we can't carry out the hopeful program of officially recasting our apparently physical, mental, etc claims in terms of more definite, specific/concrete neutral properties, thus actually describing the neutral. Maybe that's where our cognitive capacity ends.

(Not saying I endorse this, but I like to say unless one is for independent reason committed against that possibility, one might not want to rule it out.)

 

[Ren]

I think that's possible; it's also possible some would opt for ordinary emergence, not strong, i.e. reductionistic in nature, but it would only be particularly interesting to me if the reduction were to genuinely neutral entities. If you're reducing the mental to physical or the other way around, that seems a bit silly (why even adopt neutral monism then).

But my thing is I'm not sure why one would want to necessarily (sure, possibly) accommodate strong emergence if committed to neutral monism. Why not genuinely reduce the mental/physical to the neutral (NOT reduce one to the other)? If anything, I'd say that would be the most successful program to carry out period, as it would genuinely convince one of "out with the mental, out with the physical, in with the neutral".
A neutral monist program accommodating strong emergence sounds, if anything, more controversial to me.
It may be necessary if we decide strong emergence is definitely a thing (mind is the most obvious candidate one might think of for this) -- which of course many would deny (some like Quine would go the extreme of saying out with mental entirely).

My perspective here is that the lack of progress in identifying evidence for how neutral substances look more concretely in our world doesn't seem to either help or hurt the case for neutral monism, precisely because no other attempt seems anywhere close to identifying credible evidence-involving explanation for how mind/physical relate... basically we're at the infancy stage for that part, so it seems hard to judge almost any well thought out approach too harshly on the basis of concrete progress. There are brute facts as to brain states corresponding to mind states, but no explanation as to when else you can expect mind states to arise in nature that seems particularly credible right now.

The evidence right now seems about at 0, and the question really is which is the best theoretical position as of now, at least. Kind of like with quantum gravity/string theory -- still in the totally theory phase. Now, of course we actually describe the properties of strings pretty specifically in our theories, so this may bother you about the analogy, but it's totally irrelevant to my point at least, as you'll see below.

Now, you might be referring to the case where nothing ever can be said concretely of the neutral. You're right this would kill its appeal from a science POV. Though if all other approaches continue like now, they'd also die from a science pov. So I'd defer to the 'too early to say'.

Based on the nature of the mental/physical as we get them, though, we can at least ask what the nature of the relation between them is philosophically, even if we cannot yet give concrete properties of ze neutral thing. One philosophical answer to the age-old Descartes conundrum involves neutrality/I think saying the nature of reality must be neutral is an interesting claim that a priori needn't need much data! Maybe it does, but it does seem that we're asking a pretty general metaphysical question. It seems respectable to conjecture as to the relations between other objects of metaphysical consideration like numbers vs physical objects on the basis of their natures, not as much on empirical evidence, so perhaps the same is so here. At least I'd want to hear a very strong reason why one way or another before I leaned either way.

In fact, it may be that in any world such as ours, neutrality must be a better explanation than the others for some reason, but that the specific neutral properties can differ world to world (kind of like our world has very specific laws of physics). From this point of view, not having evidence for what the concrete specifics are of neutral substances in our world would matter almost not at all in deciding for/against the neutral monism view, it would seem.

Further, especially if you don't believe we'll ever explain the mind-physical apparent dichotomy, as even some prominent thinkers still do (including Witten the string theorist, I think), it's a totally respectable answer to say on philosophical grounds, the strongest arguments favor neutrality, even if we can't carry out the hopeful program of officially recasting our apparently physical, mental, etc claims in terms of more definite, specific/concrete neutral properties, thus actually describing the neutral. Maybe that's where our cognitive capacity ends.

(Not saying I endorse this, but I like to say unless one is for independent reason committed against that possibility, one might not want to rule it out.)

Right off the bat, let me clearly say that we are in complete agreement about the worthiness of the neutral monist programme. I think that, philosophically speaking, it is a very interesting and even promising endeavour. In my previous post I was partly trying to put myself in the shoes of - perhaps not wolly himself, but somebody whose conception of philosophy was more aligned with that of science. I am rather lax in that regard. I even go so far as to enjoy (and write a copious amount of) almost purely speculative philosophical material. My only restrictions are intellectual honestly and logical coherence - and even then, sometimes I find myself attracted to logical contradictions. I am an N-dom after all! Of course there are gains when a philosophical theory can be shown to be scientifically significant, but I don’t limit myself to that.

I think it might be useful if I tried to summarize what I perceived to be wolly's objections to neutral monism. Here goes:

A) It's not clear what problem neutral monism attempts to solve;
B) Neutral monism is impossible to criticize;
C) Commitment to neutral monism would mean refuting a great deal of modern scientific and technological advances without offering comparative gains in knowledge.

From a certain perspective I understand the B) objection, but I don't agree with either A) or C). Regarding A), it seems to me that neutral monism, supposing it succeeds, would actually offer an extremely elegant and parsimonious solution to the mind-body problem. Philosophically speaking, this would be of great consequence. Its merits in that respect seem unimpeachable to me.

With respect to C), I see two possible answers to the objection. The first, C1), is to suggest that different aggregates of neutral elements could functionally play the role of what a dualist or pluralist would take to be either physical or mental entities. The shift in ontology would not contradict our scientific progress (and in fact it may accommodate what you pictured to be different worlds with, let's say, different aggregates of neutral elements viewed at the macro level). The second, C2), is indeed to invoke the concept of emergence. Now – I see further possible objections to these answers, which I will try to briefly address.

I'll begin with C2), which is also a way to return to this question of weak and strong emergence. I think there might have been a (slight) misunderstanding between us, which is most likely due to the poor handle I have of the concept. I did not mean that strong emergence implied “physicalizing” or “mentalizing” our neutral substrate – on the contrary. David Chalmers describes weak emergence as “simply unexpected”, versus strong emergence as "impossible to deduce from the domain from which it arises”. Based on these definitions, if what we take to be mental and physical entities are emergent from a neutral substrate, could they really qualify as “merely unexpected”? If so, what is the link from neutral to physical/mental? It seems to me that only strong emergence is appropriately transcendent for the purposes of accommodating emergence from the neutral substrate of what we take to be physical and mental entities. So the objection against C2) could be met by invoking strong emergence (in my understanding of Chalmers’ use of the term).

With regards to C1), well, the main issue with the functional interpretation of different aggregates of neutral elements is perhaps that it doesn't sit well with the concept of strong emergence. Arguably, C1) is reductionist and deductive, which is appealing on one level but may come with its own host of problems. Here I’m thinking of the experience of phenomena, which I guess is traditionally classed as mental, though pragmatism would probably class it as physical. How would a functionalist narrative account for bundles of neutral elements giving rise to the experience of phenomena – to experience full stop, really? I actually feel like there is a solution to this, but I cannot see it or at any rate lay it out in writing for the time being.

Now, when it comes to B) and the impossibility to criticize neutral monism, I think here wolly is consistent with his open commitments to Deutsch and Popper’s philosophies of science. It’s likely that from their perspective, neutral monism is currently too impenetrable and vague to be criticized. But then the question may be asked: is that because it is bound to be vague and impenetrable, i.e. is it essentially flawed, or is it just that (like you said in your post) neutral monism is still in its “infancy”? Well, I would definitely make the choice of giving neutral monism a chance. For after all, what do we lose by doing so? The rewards, especially in regards to A), could be massive.

 

[charlatan]

It’s likely that from their perspective, neutral monism is currently too impenetrable and vague to be criticized.

I think actually my understanding is he's coming more from a POV that A) and B) are saying very linked things. That is, given it's not clear what it's trying to solve, it's impossible to criticize. I think that you and I both would say there's an obvious motivation for it, so I think we wouldn't worry about B) either as a result (you raise a slightly different point than his, which is the issue where we don't really know much tangibly about the view yet/have no evidence of neutral properties etc -- but like I've said, a priori it's just a philosophical endeavor about how metaphysical categories are related, so I don't worry too much about this).

I'm committed to caution, so I won't (knowingly at least) overstate what things can do. But I'm not committed to practical usefulness even a bit
[good to know we're brethren here]

I did not mean that strong emergence implied “physicalizing” or “mentalizing”

Sure, I didn't mean to imply you were! Still, strong emergence is potentially many steps closer to that than just weak emergence from the neutral.

Based on these definitions, if what we take to be mental and physical entities are emergent from a neutral substrate, could they really qualify as “merely unexpected”? If so, what is the link from neutral to physical/mental? It seems to me that only strong emergence is appropriately transcenden

Well, here's the thing -- first we have to distinguish between the worry of whether the neutral program will succeed to find a link to the physical/mental vs what the best motivation for the neutral program would be. Perhaps you're totally right about the transcendent part (I'm open to all these), but basically the question is what are the implications of that for the neutral view.

If we called mind strongly emergent from the neutral substance, this raises the question: how is this better than thinking of strong emergence from a physical substrate like a brain? That is, if the properties of mind cannot even in principle be deduced from those of the neutral, is the motivation of having a concept of mind-physical neutrality doing its job explanation-wise?
Basically my point is that, if you're already suspecting this kind of transcendence, I suspect that's actually at least a few points in favor of skepticism about the neutral program -- obviously it's no knockdown argument, but it's certainly substantial it seems to me.

It's worth noting that if "merely unexpected" really means "deducible in principle, at least by a neutral alien demon with the right cognitive faculties, even if insanely hard in practice" -- it becomes less outlandish to say that sure, mind/physical may be just-emergent. After all, if you're conjecturing this wild neutral view, and such a neutral substance exists, the neutral substance is probably wacky enough to do the job, so to speak. If it's not wacky enough to do the job, maybe good old-fashioned physical objects + strong emergence would work just fine.

At least how I'm understanding you, you're sort of saying "well, it really seems like mind/physical are way, way, way far from being dissolved -- and we know nothing about this neutral stuff.... so my best guess is mind/physical are going to be strongly emergent, not just weak-saucely emergent"
I guess my point is if you're going to try a crazy view like neutrality at all, and if we can say anything about such a substance, it might be precisely BECAUSE mind/physical won't seem so transcendent anymore in light of the neutral substance.


[Just guessing at how you're thinking here, to make my replies more helpful, sorry if I'm butchering....]


Anyway, I don't worry about C) as I've said. The worry that science is describing stuff that doesn't exist in the neutral program seems only justifiable if one is committed to science describing the robustly physical from the outset. If one thinks of reality as comprised of the neutral, it's easy to imagine believing we can some day recast everything we've done in science terms of fundamental neutral terms via a reductionist program, so that's one way of dispatching with C). It's really not much different than just finding a more fundamental description of reality, which happens in science all the time.
From one POV, the first thing we see = our minds, so there's no way science seems to have to be committed to choosing the physical over the mental. And as long as you don't think in those terms, you're already a priori opening up to potentially more neutral ones. Even more if you reject dualism.

 

[Lurk]

You guys are adorable. :heartu:

I miss these threads so much.

You guys are way over my head -- I'm inspired. If you have any text recommendations, send them my way.

 

[Ren]

I think actually my understanding is he's coming more from a POV that A) and B) are saying very linked things. That is, given it's not clear what it's trying to solve, it's impossible to criticize. I think that you and I both would say there's an obvious motivation for it, so I think we wouldn't worry about B) either as a result (you raise a slightly different point than his, which is the issue where we don't really know much tangibly about the view yet/have no evidence of neutral properties etc -- but like I've said, a priori it's just a philosophical endeavor about how metaphysical categories are related, so I don't worry too much about this).

Yes, my understanding is also that wolly is coming from the point of view that A) and B) are saying linked things. Indeed I could entertain that B) may follow from A) if objection A) is subscribed to. But you and I seem to be agreed that neutral monism has a pretty transparent agenda. I would even be more extreme and suggest that what it attempts to solve is – so far anyway – the most well-defined aspect of it!

That being said, neutral monism has been copiously criticised (as any serious philosophical standpoint ought to be) in abstraction from its purpose. Which to me, is a rather reassuring thing. I will not go into the details of what critical angles have been picked but the fact that there have been numerous critiques of neutral monism indicates that it’s possible to critique it. I suppose the both of us would be willing to do so, since our interest is not in defending neutral monism itself but in defending its a priori legitimacy as a metaphysical theory.

If we called mind strongly emergent from the neutral substance, this raises the question: how is this better than thinking of strong emergence from a physical substrate like a brain? That is, if the properties of mind cannot even in principle be deduced from those of the neutral, is the motivation of having a concept of mind-physical neutrality doing its job explanation-wise?
Basically my point is that, if you're already suspecting this kind of transcendence, I suspect that's actually at least a few points in favor of skepticism about the neutral program -- obviously it's no knockdown argument, but it's certainly substantial it seems to me.

It's worth noting that if "merely unexpected" really means "deducible in principle, at least by a neutral alien demon with the right cognitive faculties, even if insanely hard in practice" -- it becomes less outlandish to say that sure, mind/physical may be just-emergent. After all, if you're conjecturing this wild neutral view, and such a neutral substance exists, the neutral substance is probably wacky enough to do the job, so to speak. If it's not wacky enough to do the job, maybe good old-fashioned physical objects + strong emergence would work just fine.

I see your point. I really think I’m using a different conception of strong emergence, though. (Possibly I’m using it in the very idiosyncratic understanding of David Chalmers himself, and I’m just not aware that his use of the concept is idiosyncratic!) For Chalmers strong emergence means that the emergent entity has properties that the domain from which it emerges simply does not possess – explaining why such properties could not under any circumstances have been predicted. Maybe this is just too easy a cop out, but under this definition, I don’t see why there would be a better reason to pick a physical substrate rather than a neutral one. And provided that either choice is equal, why not opt for the one which, by the same token, happens to offer a solution to the mind/body problem? That’s how I understand the attractiveness of strong emergence in the Chalmersian sense, though such an approach could make the philosophical enterprise a lot less interesting.

At least how I'm understanding you, you're sort of saying "well, it really seems like mind/physical are way, way, way far from being dissolved -- and we know nothing about this neutral stuff.... so my best guess is mind/physical are going to be strongly emergent, not just weak-saucely emergent"

I guess my point is if you're going to try a crazy view like neutrality at all, and if we can say anything about such a substance, it might be precisely BECAUSE mind/physical won't seem so transcendent anymore in light of the neutral substance.

I also understand your approach and I see no objection to it. Indeed, neutral could just be that wacky superpowerful substance, lol. Again, if we’re going to strictly limit ourselves to questions of metaphysical possibility, then to me there is no question that neutral monism is defensible for the reasons you’ve given. And I suppose this was your very purpose since the discussion arose not as a result of wolly wanting to discuss neutral monism but rather (in his own words) stating that it could be “summarily dismissed”. I don’t agree and I think your points show that it is otherwise, at least for the (admittedly modest) claim that neutral monism is at the very least metaphysically coherent.

Anyway, I don't worry about C) as I've said. The worry that science is describing stuff that doesn't exist in the neutral program seems only justifiable if one is committed to science describing the robustly physical from the outset. If one thinks of reality as comprised of the neutral, it's easy to imagine believing we can some day recast everything we've done in science terms of fundamental neutral terms via a reductionist program, so that's one way of dispatching with C). It's really not much different than just finding a more fundamental description of reality, which happens in science all the time.
From one POV, the first thing we see = our minds, so there's no way science seems to have to be committed to choosing the physical over the mental. And as long as you don't think in those terms, you're already a priori opening up to potentially more neutral ones. Even more if you reject dualism.

I do not have anything to add to this as I am basically in complete agreement with you here. I’m sure this will be highly pleasing to the E6 that you are I’m glad to see that our discussion has progressed and clearly led us to clarifying our mutual positions as well as the reasons why neutral monism is a defensible project.

 

[Ren]

I miss these threads so much.

You guys are way over my head -- I'm inspired. If you have any text recommendations, send them my way.

Hi @Lurk, I'm glad that you are enjoying the discussion. I'd be happy to recommend texts, but what would you be looking for exactly? Stuff on neutral monism or broader? I'm not sure beginning with neutral monism is the best idea if you're not familiar with the broader field of ontology/metaphysics. So let me know.

 

[charlatan]

Maybe this is just too easy a cop out, but under this definition, I don’t see why there would be a better reason to pick a physical substrate rather than a neutral one.

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?

 

[charlatan]

Such nonreductive varieties would say -- sure the physical properties determine the mind ones, but you only are getting at the mathematics of them when you conduct measurements. These logically determine the mental (ie having the physical properties implies having the mental), but there's an epistemic gap -- you don't learn the taste of ice cream without eating it. Kinda like saying you don't learn science by armchair theorizing of the kind I love.

 

[charlatan]

And to be further clear: I still think it would probably be metaphysically coherent to suppose the neutral pov and have strong emergence. Just, it seems less likely to address the specific issues we have better than some kind of physicalism with strong emergence....than if you could really reduce all genuinely to the neutral. And given it seems part of the agenda for supposing neutrality really is to have such a better explanation, that's something to think about