QUESTION:
Is monism a word or definition you would use in conjunction with emergentism?
SETH:
I tend to think the word "materialism" is unhelpful, since it almost sets one up for a conflict with the hard problem of consciousness. I feel like reducing reality to energy is more helpful than reducing reality to materials. Unfortunately, the word "energism" has already been colonized by Maslow's philosophy. I can't find a word that represents reducing reality to energy. This metaphysical energism that I am suggesting helps maintain monism (energy) while also allowing for consciousness to evolve out of organizations of energy, escaping the trap of dualism, since consciousness could be classified an emergent property of energy, instead of a separate substance. So, I guess, I would be inclined to say that "energism-based emergentism" maintains its monism, but "materialism-based emergentism" risks looking like a dualism (at a minimum a property dualism).
PHILIP:
Yeah, I like this. It’s very much in line with my thinking. Terms are still evolving … I, too, am interested in David Long’s thoughts.
DAVID:
Yeah, I'm a property dualist.
I don't really use the word Materialist any more if I can avoid it cause it's basically a derogatory strawman. If we answer to or identify as that term It's like our ops draw a chalk outline of a dead man on the ground and then we lay in it.
I'm an emergentist when it comes to consciousness, a hard agnostic when it comes to the absolute from an epistemic perspective, and a sacred naturalist when it comes to belief.
Energism? Sure.
But in general I'm trying to use words/categories that are more common rather than seeming like a person who is making up my own terms for positions that kinda already exist. - Just because words that are already being used in conversations by intellectuals seem more established and are taken more seriously.
I personally only want to create new terms to make new distinctions and even then I will probably use other established terms in the mix.
PHILIP:
I hadn't heard of "property dualism" before. I think I jive with it, though I still describe myself as a non-dualist with respect to Reality at Large. I don't really think there are separate pieces, only experiential perspectives through with which we observe Reality Happening that allow for useful distinctions.
I can't seem to get away from a kind of monism with an animating force at the bottom that facilitates the dance. But it's also hard for me to tell exactly where the science stops, and the poetry starts. In the end, I don't think it matters a whole lot to me, because I too have a sacred naturalist belief system and a deep appreciation for Campbell's work above most.
SETH:
Found a definition of energism that kind of works?
Or perhaps this - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energeticism
RASMUS:
If we understand materialism as synonymous to physicalism, which I understand to be the view that all facts are physical facts, or are supervenient on physical facts. Then, if we understand energy as reducible to physical facts, energism just seems like physicalism, or at least a variant thereof. Moreover, I don't see how this view escapes dualism any more or less than materialism or physicalism. Consciousness may be an emergent property of matter, of the physical world, or of energy. Regardless of which of these it is emergent from, if we assume consciousness is emergent, how does energism escape dualism any more or less than materialism or physicalism? That consciousness may not be a separate substance doesn't negate dualism. It only negates substance dualism. But there is still property dualism. Does energism escape property dualism? If not, don't we still have the interaction problem and at least some version of the hard problem of consciousness? Wouldn't the question remain how energy and its property that is consciousness interact? And wouldn't the question remain how and/or why the phenomenal aspects of consciousness, or qualia, emerge or arise from energy? If so, the same problems seems to remain. If on the other hand, energism escapes both substance dualism and property dualism, getting to be some form of pure monism, then still in this case, a question just like the hard problem of consciousness seems to remain: how does the phenomenal properties of consciousness, or qualia, emerge or arise from the the lower level of domain, even if both the higher and lower level domains ultimately are both energy in a monist sense? Here, some reductive explanation seems to be required. But can we reduce, even in principle, the phenomenal properties of consciousness to energy? If so, problem solved. But if not, we seem to be facing the same problem.
SETH:
Great question Ramus! The way I see it is, philosophically, the dualism problem is the distinction between physical facts and mental facts. If we reduce reality to materials or physical facts, then we are left with the problem of explaining mental facts. This forces a type of dualism.
Metaphysical energism would not reduce reality to either physical facts or materials. Reducing reality to energy means that the universe is based on the properties or emergent properties of energy.
The question of energism escaping property dualism is a quite interesting one. Let me start with materialism as an analogy. With materialism, we accept particles as base reality. At base there are quantum particles. These emerge into protons, electrons, and neutrons. These emerge into over 100 types of atoms. These emerge into innumerable varieties of molecular structures. You wouldn't say that the fact that materials can organize into a multiplicity of forms necessitates a "property multiplism". I think the monism of materials admits that this monism can emerge into any form possible, and still maintain its monistic nature.
So, if materials emerging into many forms doesn't violate the monistic nature of materialism, why would energy emerging into many forms violate the monistic nature of energism?
By not excluding consciousness from base reality, energism doesn't require the label of dualism since consciousness would be a non-contradictory emergent factor of this monism.
These are my current thoughts! What do you think?
PHILIP:
Speaking for myself, I haven't really seen the "hard problem" as all that hard for a long time. To me, qualia are simply snapshots or samples taken from a unified field of vibrations/oscillations using particular technologies.
The fact that we can somehow agree on what "is red" is a result of the fact that we share perceptual technologies. Nothing "is red" without language, but there is still vibration waiting to be measured. Further, subjective experience is built on neuronal imaging technology (feelings) that is built on neuronal stimulus-response technology (emotions) that is built on basic sensory technology. The bootstrapping is quite clear in my mind.
Does "energism" escape both property and substance dualism? Hard to say. My current construction says the monistic recursive generator function is something like "the capacity to cohere (or to not fall apart faster than necessary)." It's plausible to me that prior to Big Bang, this field/capacity was present. At some point there was a singularity. The generator function is the thing that manages the compression/tension dynamic necessary for "things" to take form. Singularity (ultimate tension without compression members) is not acceptable per the generator function, so Bang! But falling apart (ultimate compression without tension to hold together) is also not acceptable. It's plausible to me this balance is facilitated by something like Gauge Symmetry or Eric Weinstein's Theory of Geometric Unity.
Does this escape duality (stuff vs contextual awareness)? Maybe so. Maybe not. Again, I'm with David Long in being a hard agnostic when it comes to the epistemic/ontological primary.
SETH:
LOL... this comment throws an error in my mind! XD How can duality be unescapable if the hard problem of consciousness is escapable? Also, redness is based on qualia, right? Language would be a somewhat unrelated phenomenon for generating social coherence. Even if people cohere around the word "red" that doesn't mean they each experience the same qualia. We can only infer through inductive reasoning that they experience the same qualia, given that they have similar machinery. If we can understand the physics of qualia (unified field of vibrations/oscillations for example) then perhaps we can solve this problem by objectively verifying that they are experiencing the same unified field, hence same qualia.
PHILIP:
Hehehe. I never said duality was inescapable. I said I can't be sure. I guess I'm either simplifying the hard problem too much, or not really understanding it properly.
Talk through it with me when you have time.
Qualia (the contents of experience) are derived from Reality (the unified field of vibration/oscillation, or whatever) by means of technology. To me it seems clear that qualia are emergent, insofar as they are products of nervous systems taking pictures. I make the assumption that Reality exists whether we are there to observe it (chop it up into pieces and derive qualia from those pieces) or not. It is the localized technology taking measurements that differentiates the world into discrete pieces and ascribes qualia. Different technologies yield different qualia precisely because they arise in different localized contexts.
I don't see a problem with this picture, and it seems consistent with "energism" or whatever we're calling it. Have I thrown an exception somewhere?
SETH:
I haven't thought about the dualism vs monism much, so the failure to understand could definitely be on my end!
To me, the hard problem is basically the idea that we have physical facts (neurotransmitter collides into a neuron!) and that magically produces mental facts (the qualia of redness).
Materialism dualism is basically the recognition that these collisions have two properties - physical properties and mental properties.
Energism basically skirts this by saying perhaps energy organizes into materials that collide, but these collisions can alter energy fields, and these energy fields can have an element of qualia inherent to their nature.
To me it seems like your solution to the hard problem also solves dualism, since the qualia is reduced to the attributes of energy (fields).
PHILIP:
Yes, I think we are tracking here. There's really no need for "magic" in this picture, besides "in the beginning," perhaps.
SETH:
Yeah, I think we're on the same wavelength now.
SAL:
SETH:
Nice!! Would I be interpreting this correctly to bucket "energism" in with a neutral monism - 3rd substance of which matter and mind are emergent properties?
Alexander
Energism would only be a neutral monism if energy is not inherently physical. Otherwise it would be a monism of physical > mental.
I think we need to define what "physical" means first. Is it "has mass" or "In spacetime" or something else?
SETH:
I agree!