A single Monism
There are multiple "kinds" of monists from idealists, to physicalists to materialists, to God knows what else. I think they're all the same, despite sparking such heated discussion (the first 2 especially).
I've always struggled to see the difference between the "kinds" of monism when I dig deeper into them. They always just seemed to be saying the same thing eventually because X keeps getting less descriptive until it just reduces to "a thing". It's because, if you say "everything is X" then X is meaningless.
Any property we think of is only a property if there is something that doesn't have it. "Orange" makes sense because you can take something orange, and something that is not orange, and point to the difference. If you couldn't, no one would be able to learn what "orange" means. Same with all the other properties. We understand them because there is something that doesn't have them, and something that does.
A corollary to this would be that there can be no property that applies to everything while being meaningful. If I said that everything is "hakuna matata" I couldn't pass on my great insight to anyone else. Because if someone asked "what does hakuna matata mean?" I wouldn't be able to tell them, as I cannot bring something that isn't hakuna matata to show the difference (since everything is hakuna matata). So whatever it is that everything is made of, cannot have any specificity or else it would exclude something that exists, making it so that it is not what everything is made of. I conclude that all the monisms: "Everything is X" are the same, just using different words to describe the same X.
If the world was made of chocolate, then "chocolate" would be a meaningless word. Its only use would be to say that something exists similar to "thing".
Thoughts?
I've always struggled to see the difference between the "kinds" of monism when I dig deeper into them. They always just seemed to be saying the same thing eventually because X keeps getting less descriptive until it just reduces to "a thing". It's because, if you say "everything is X" then X is meaningless.
Any property we think of is only a property if there is something that doesn't have it. "Orange" makes sense because you can take something orange, and something that is not orange, and point to the difference. If you couldn't, no one would be able to learn what "orange" means. Same with all the other properties. We understand them because there is something that doesn't have them, and something that does.
A corollary to this would be that there can be no property that applies to everything while being meaningful. If I said that everything is "hakuna matata" I couldn't pass on my great insight to anyone else. Because if someone asked "what does hakuna matata mean?" I wouldn't be able to tell them, as I cannot bring something that isn't hakuna matata to show the difference (since everything is hakuna matata). So whatever it is that everything is made of, cannot have any specificity or else it would exclude something that exists, making it so that it is not what everything is made of. I conclude that all the monisms: "Everything is X" are the same, just using different words to describe the same X.
If the world was made of chocolate, then "chocolate" would be a meaningless word. Its only use would be to say that something exists similar to "thing".
Thoughts?
Comments (103)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Achintya_Bheda_Abheda
There is nothing wrong, or contradictory, or even difficult about the idea that something can be two things at the same time - diversity and unity. It's a matter of perspective and the situation at hand.
Not meaningless. But the debate between the different monisms is. Idealists and physicalists are using different words to talk about the same thing. "Mental thing" adds nothing to "thing" when "mental" is a property of everything. Same with "physical".
Quoting T Clark
It becomes a problem when the categories you define (as a substance dualist, or someone who thinks there is more than two categories) are defined as contradictory, or incapable of interacting. Something cannot be mental and physical at the same time to a substance dualist. That's really what separates him from a monist.
Okay, materialism is logically equivalent to idealism. I can agree with that. For instance, wasn't materialist Marx the epitome of political idealism?
So what does "any one kind of thing" add to just "thing"? What is monism's substantial claim in your view? Is it about the existence of some fundamental "stuff" from which everything is formed?
Monism says there can be only one kind of fundamental stuff. Not two or three or an infinity of different kinds of stuff but just one. Khaled's point is that it doesn't matter how you call that fundamental stuff; that behind the conflicting labels (materialism, idealism), there is in fact only one kind of monism.
It's just that one stuff, however you want to call it.
Personally, I never really understood monism. How could all this diversity stem from just one stuff? Monism can only be static, dead, boring; it's simplistic at the extreme. In reality it's always two to tango; one needs two different things to make a ying-yang. There's not enough tension and dynamism in monism to explain the world as we know it.
1. [math]A \subseteq B[/math]
2. [math]A \subset B[/math]
3. [math]A = B[/math]
Yes. That it's ONE fundamental stuff not many.
How many shapes can you make out of lines?
Quoting Olivier5
But that doesn't contradict monism. You can have a circle and a square (and infinitely more shapes) all made out of lines. Different combinations of the same thing.
But when you claim there is multiple fundamental kinds of stuff, this fundamental kind of stuff cannot interact with that fundamental kind of stuff. If they could, in what sense are they fundamental kinds of stuff?
Technically, you cannot get a circle or a square just with lines. You also need a 2D space as the context for those lines, i.e. a plane in which to inscribe your circles and squares.
Our world is spatial too, just like the world of lines. Do you think that space and time are made of the same one stuff as apples and rocks? That's what it would take to be a true monist. If you think that space, time or spacetime is NOT made of the same stuff as apples and rocks, then you have at least two kinds of stuff in your worldview: spacetime, and "apples and rocks", so you are still a dualist...
I take your point that stuff interacts with stuff, which may constrain the degree to which there can be essentially different stuff in the universe.
It's just that to me, one unique stuff cannot possibly self-differentiate. Some external force would have to be applied to that unique stuff in order to differentiate it into particulars, like in the book of Genesis when the god(s) create an original chaos and then separate light and obscurity and divide the earth from the skies. The chaos could not separate all by itself; the Elohim had to do it. So here we have the Elohim and their creation, i.e. two kinds of stuff.
If we conceive of a world made of only one kind of stuff, whence the dynamism and creativity in it? Whereas if reality is premised on tension or equilibrium between several stuff, then it can be essentially dynamical.
"Our Nada, who art in Nada, hallowed be thy Nada ..."
Quoting Olivier5
I think you're quite mistaken, Oliver. Daoism, for instance, is fundamentally monistic. To wit:
[quote=Daodejing, Chap. 42][b]The Dao ? (the “way”) gives birth to one.
One gives birth to Two, [/b]
Two gives birth to Three.
Three gives birth to thousands of things or all things in the universe.
All things carry yin and embrace yang.
When yang and yin combine, all things achieve harmony.[/quote]
So are Democritean atomism¿, Spinozist dual-aspect holism (i.e. "property dualism"), Advaita Vendata's m?y? (re: acosmism), Heraclitean fire (i.e. flux¿), ... Meillassoux's hyperchaos¿, etc, more or less, instances of dialectical monism.
Re: Observational complexity from fundamental simplicity (à la Conway's "Game of Life") e.g. vacuum fluctuations¿ (i.e. virtual particles, radiation) aka "spontaneous symmetry-breaking" —> from planck radius accelerating expansion (inflation) to Hubble volume ...
Quoting Olivier5
Yeah, "logically equivalent" as members of the same set of "monism"; however, they are not conceptually equivalent: "idealism" – protestations notwithstanding – presupposes (or supervenes on) "materialism" – mind is nonmind-dependent (i.e. idea-tion is embodied) – and not the other way around; otherwise one gets the kind of 'Parmenidean idealism' which you aptly describe as
i.e. an unpredicated, useless concept.
Yes, but because of his teleology (i.e. a variation on Hegel's dialectic), IME, not materialism per se.
:up:
I fail to see that big conceptual difference between materialism and idealism. It's all just one type of chocolate, to paraphrase @Khaled.
This is precisely the point I am arguing against. One cannot really "give birth to two". One can only give birth to yet another one. For some change to happen, one needs a sort of engine for difference, a reason for change, a maker of novelty. And to me that could be either an external force ("gods") or some instability internal to the universe, some tension, a fundamental yin-yang in the fabric of the world.
Quoting 180 Proof
In my mind, a materialist should try and be logically consistent and not adopt anything like a teleology. But Khaled's point is precisely that such an idea is naïve, because if one thinks that there is only one kind of stuff out there, then that one kind of stuff is everything and does everything. So in the case of Marx, matter provided him with an ideal, illogical as that may sound on first examination.
Because they disagree on what that “thing” is (mental/physical).
Quoting khaled
That’s true, but only if there is complete agreement. As of now there are competing concepts about the fundamental “thing,” so different words are needed to differentiate between these concepts. The properties of a physical thing are different from those of a mental thing. So the debate is about what properties (I.e. mental=A, B, C; physical=X, Y, Z) every “thing” has.
Failure of (your) imagination isn't an argument, O.
Consider: suppose the "One" thing is dynamic, unstable, chaotic, unbounded ... suppose flowing, fluidity, fluctuation is all there "really" is ... suppose the "One" thing which constitutes everything is fundamental (like the ocean) and the "Many" are only surface effects (like ocean waves caused by – symptomatic of – ocean currents, etc) ...
... suppose :fire:
As pointed out already, two or more whatevers (substances?) would not be fundamental, and so the question would be begged. Even "there is no fundamental whatever" is, in fact, fundamental no-thing-ness (i.e. atomism's void, Buddhist sunyata, etc).
I still don't see what substantive claim is being made. Sometimes we make distinctions, sometimes we lump things together. When we lump everything together, we end up with one undifferentiated referrent. Wouldn't that be the same as this fundamental stuff of monism? If so, it doesn't seem to commit us to anything.
Fair enough: this one and unique substance of the monists could well harbor in itself, as part of its very own necessary (intrinsic) qualities, the capacity to change in a radical manner, to transform creatively over time. To become different from its earlier... form?
Quoting 180 Proof
I suppose it all boils down to what is meant by fundamental, then. In my mind, a kind of stuff can be said to be fundamentally different from another IFF it is impossible to produce one from the other and/or vice versa (not even in theory) by re-arraging its components for instance. E.g. since it is theoretically possible to change lead into gold, or clay into pot, or energy into matter, these two kinds of stuff are not fundamentally different.
Is that different or similar to your concept of it?
Yes.
Quoting Olivier5
Yes.
Quoting Olivier5
I don't see why it couldn't.Quoting Olivier5
What applied that force?
If it's a different kind of stuff, then how could it apply said force? That's the dualist problem.
Let's say you find out, after long exhaustive search, that the fundamental thing making up the world is Matata. How would you go about explaining what Matata is?
My point is that you literally cannot articulate what the property that everything shares is, if everything truly shares it. If you want to explain what Matata is, you need to bring something that is not Matata to compare it to. But if there is something that is not Matata, then not everything is Matata.
Not sure why not. Difference is not indifference.
What does the word "fundamentally" add to "fundamentally different"?
Anyways it's 3 am and I'm going to bed, don't expect a reply :yawn:
Except it matters how we make these distinctions. To me, positing that there are two fundamentally different kinds of stuff would also mean they cannot interact. Like in the mind body problem.
Monism isn't against making distinctions, it's against making distinctions that make it so that the categories cannot interact.
In my mind, a kind of stuff can be said to be fundamentally different from another IFF it is impossible to produce one from the other and/or vice versa (not even in theory) by re-arraging its components for instance. E.g. since it is theoretically possible to change lead into gold, or clay into pot, or energy into matter, these two kinds of stuff are not fundamentally different.
Quoting khaled
:100:
“Hey guys, remember how we thought everything was ‘Hakuna Matata?’ Well, it turns out it’s just Matata.”
We are capable of imagining things that aren’t real, so we can always compare our actual findings with whatever we previously imagined them to be.
But who believes that these categories cannot interact? The mind-body problem is precisely a problem, it is posed as a challenge for dualism, not something that dualism embraces.
I think you are right in framing monism as an opposition to dualism though - that is how it appears historically. Dualism, in its most general outlines, carves out a special and exceptional place for the mental in its ontology and metaphysics. This is sometimes referred to as mentalism. So the best case for monism that I can see is a straightforward rejection of mentalism and nothing more.
Everything is x
You see some apples, apples! You see some apples & bananas, fruits! You see some apples, bananas and meat, food! You see some apples, bananas, meat and bulldozers, things!
"What's that thing you have in your hands?" An unknown, Apollonius of Perga's legacy.
A distinct feeling of ignorance, being in the dark.
Say everything is physical. Light! A transition from ignorance to knowledge. Illusory/ real?
"Bring me that thing over there," said she to Tom.
Tom: :confused: :chin: ???
She clarifies, "if it's physical, bring it."
Tom: :confused: :chin: ???
Argument from (personal) incredulity.. It's a short read.
1. A universal referent i.e. if the universe, universe in the broadest sense, is a set, the word "thing" refers to any and all members of that set, the universal set.
2. a variable, like x or y or z in mathematics it simply designates an unknown.
Do you see what's going on here?
In sense 1, a thing is the value of a variable (x = thing) and in the sense 2, a thing is a variable (x).
If Ax = x is an apple and Px = x is physical,
3. Apples are physical: If something is an apple then it is physical. [math](\forall x)(Ax \rightarrow Px)[/math]
4. Things are physical: [math](\forall x)Px[/math] [A variable can't be a value]
What gives?
Apart from some panpsychism à la Spinoza, materialist explanations for the mind-body problem are usually self-contradictory. They saw the branch on which they sit. Even Spinoza only solved the problem via God, just like Descartes did. So I consider the mind-body problem a challenge for atheists or secularists (such as myself), more than a challenge to dualists.
The challenge could be put this way: "If there's no ghost of the universe, how come there's a ghost of us, human beings?" By ghost I mean something like mind or sentience.
It's unlikely you'll get a conversation.
I'm a monist but it's perfectly obvious, as you have pointed out, that the first challenge that a monist has to answer is: What is the explanation of the manifest duality that I see? This may be easily dealt with, or it may not. But it is a serious question, and not to be dismissed as an argument from incredulity, even if the challenge is framed using language like "I don't see how..."
Sad but true.
Quoting bert1
Or triality, or n-ality.
There are dimensions, such as time and space, that seem to exist objectively and look radically unlike other stuff, such as roses, or even ideas of roses. Space may be a product of matter at plank scale, as loop quantum gravity appears to posit, but I'm out of my depth here.
It seems Laozi was uninformed about geometric progressions: 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32,...
Maybe he was talking about the exponents and not the terms.
Ok let's run with that.
Quoting Olivier5
Ok, so let's call the fundamental stuff all of those are made of "X".
Someone now proposes a different fundamental stuff stuff Y. Thus Y by necessity cannot be made into energy, or matter. So what proof do we have of the existence of Y? We can't see it or feel it or interact with it.
Y gets cut by Occam's razor. On the epiphenomenalism thread weren't you the one that opposed the view because you thought that something that doesn't affect anything else, would not be detectible and wouldn't exist?
The example I used was to illustrate how you can't explain what Hakuna Matata is. So you can't say "it was just Matata". We don't know what Hakuna Matata is.
Quoting Pinprick
But those things are always combinations of existing properties. Unicorns are horses with horns. We know what horns are and we know what horses are. We can't imagine entirely new properties. Like a new color. Or a new taste.
The people that proposed them, necessarily. Or else what does "fundamentally" add to "fundamentally different"? My definition is that it means they cannot interact. Do you have a different definition?
Quoting SophistiCat
It is a challenge because it seems clear that incorporeal, immaterial stuff (minds) would have no way to interact with material stuff. It's not a solvable problem, just how long have people been trying to solve it. It's a problem that refutes the position.
And some forms of dualism DO embrace it, because that's what you have to do if you want to say minds and matter are fundamentally different. Example: Epiphenomenalism.
Quoting SophistiCat
First you have "thing" which refers to everything (monism)
Then you split it into "mental" and "physical" with some objects being mental and others being physical.
You furthermore posit that this exhausts all objects that exist. So now, not every object is physical, and not every object is mental.
The problem with dualism is that these categories are defined as fundamentally different. Not just different. A hammer and a table are different, but they can affect each other very easily. That's because they're made of the same stuff (matter in this case). When you say things are fundamentally different you're implying they cannot interact (or so is my definition, if you have another one please share). How could a non-physical thing push a physical thing? It makes no sense because they're fundamentally different kinds of stuff.
Rejecting mentalism at this point will amount to rejecting the existence of some things. That's not what monism is. Monism is going back to "thing", though people don't call it that (usually they use "mind" or "matter" and fight over it)
Why would there not be?
Electrons and protons have charges but a balanced atom doesn't. Oftentimes properties are lost when you go from the constituents to the system as a whole.
I have a brain, Society doesn’t. Etc.
Seems like an irrelevant example then. We have a working definition of “physical” don’t we? Not saying it’s 100% complete, but we are able to at least partially describe it. If the fundamental thing in the universe fits our definition of “physical,” then physicalism prevails. We can define that without needing to know the definition of mind/idealism. So what’s the issue?
Quoting khaled
I don’t see why this is an issue. Why would the fundamental “thing” possess new properties?
So the reason there can be some form of intelligence in the universe, is that there's a lot of stupidity in it too, and they tend to balance each other out? :cool:
Quoting khaled
Quoting khaled
And that's why your construal of the core dualist position cannot be accurate. You've refuted it yourself (your construal). It would be like insisting that the core Christian belief is that Jesus did not rise from the grave, because the alternative is obviously impossible.
Quoting khaled
There are different varieties of dualism and different ways in which its proponents defend it. But the general idea is in singling out the mental as special and central to the conception of the whole world, while preserving a distinction between mental and non-mental. What, if any, position dualists take on the issue of interaction is not what makes them dualists in the first place. Descartes, the poster child of dualism, posited a very real causal interaction between mind and body, but that seemed to be more of an afterthought, when he felt that he had to address the question somehow.
Quoting khaled
Yes, but how is that fundamental difference cached out? I don't think there is a single criterion, like causal interaction, on which dualists stake their worldview. And for the same reason, if one views monism simply as a denial of dualism(s), which I think is correct, then there isn't a clear-cut definition of what it is - just a general approach to seeing the world.
State it then. What does "physical" mean to a physicalist?
Quoting Pinprick
It was a response to you. You said we can imagine things that are not real. I showed that even those things are based on things that are real. You can't imagine new properties.
So let's say we define "physical" such that it includes X, Y and Z properties while "mental" includes A, B and C properties. Then both "everything is physical" and "everything is mental" is clearly false by that definition.
Even if we say physical things don't exist and only minds do, the properties X, Y and Z were derived from things that exist, and minds don't have X, Y or Z. Therefore that view fails to account for the real things we got the properties X, Y and Z from.
And the opposite: Mental things don't exist, only physical things do is also false. The properties A, B and C must have been derived from something that exists, and since physical things don't have A, B or C, then this view fails to account for the real tings we got the properties A, B and C from.
But if we define physical so as to include X, Y, Z, A, B and C, there is nothing left for mental. Same with if we define mental to include all the properties. That's seems to me to be what physicalists and idealists are doing respectively.
Even physicalism does that. If the observer wasn't doing a large part in our interpretation of reality, object recognition AI wouldn't be so hard to build. So your construal cannot be accurate.
Quoting SophistiCat
Then why do you ask what monism claims if you think it doesn't have a single definition? I take the criterion to be the one substance dualists use. I've been simply saying "dualist" so far but I did say substance dualist at first, and that's what I meant. In that since I'm talking about a "substance monism".
Yes, I pointed out that if conscious thoughts had no impact on anything else (i.e. were epiphenomena) then nobody would know of their existence. But it was not my position that conscious thoughts were epiphenomena; it was yours. My position has always been that thoughts are impactful, that the pen is mightier than the sword so to speak.
Humans have the ability to give identity to things. Imagine a field of grass. That's one "thing". Now imagine a blade of grass. That's another "thing". Now imagine a cell in the grass. You get it.
While I demonstrated applying identities to things that are smaller, we can also apply them to things that are larger. The monism of "everything" is simply a logical limit of this identification process. Can we truly comprehend everything by experience? No. But we can comprehend everything as a logical consequence.
Is this useful? Consider that at one time in math, the number 0, did not exist. Zero symbolizes nothing after all. Nothing isn't something you can touch or feel. And yet, the number zero is incredibly useful in describing the other numbers. The state of "An absence of any identity" helps us come to conclusions about identities. Can the same be said about "An inclusion of all identities" help us in the same way? Perhaps.
I would consider the concept of souls to be an exception, but maybe you disagree. Actually, immaterialism as a whole seems doesn’t seem like it could be derived from things that actually exist.
Quoting khaled
I feel like saying that there’s some thing, or some property of some thing, that doesn’t interact with physical material, and isn’t effected by the laws of physics would never be accepted by a physicalist. That seems to be the line between physicalism and idealism.
Then it can't be derived as you defined it. How would you derive it?
If I tell you about the property of "unglabungla" but am not able to explain the difference between something that is unglabungla and something that is not unglabungla, then unblabungla is meaningless correct? Since then "unblabungla thing" adds nothing to "thing".
Quoting Pinprick
Really? Most people would be able to explain whatever they mean by soul. They could point to something without a soul, and something with a soul. In other words, they still derive it out of things that exist.
Quoting Pinprick
It wouldn't be denied. The physicalist would point out that there is no way to confirm the existence of this thing that has no effect on anything (because it has no effect on anything), so proposing its existence is as significant as proposing the existence of the omnipotent teapot that chooses to do nothing and to hide its presence completely in the heart of the sun.
Yes there could be such a teapot, but first off: who cares even if it exists, it affects nothing, and secondly: you have no evidence to claim its existence.
Physicalists wouldn't state that it doesn't exist. They would state that you can't know whether or not it does.
Quoting Pinprick
I haven't heard an idealist positively claim the existence of something that doesn't affect us in any way either. Because what evidence could he have for its existence? Can you point out an example of an idealist making that claim?
Indeed, there has to be a Fundamental Existent, X, because nonexistence cannot be. Thus it is mandatory and it is all there is, as the simplest partless and continuous state, for it cannot be composite and still be Fundamental. it can't make anything different than itself, but it can rearrange itself into rather persistent but temporary forms such as the elementary 'particles' that are excitations of it at stable rungs of field energy quanta; thus it as X is the quantum vacuum with its overall quantum field.
So, we have the logic in accord with science. Can't beat that! It is proved! It made a temporary universe and it is ever there to make another.
Yes, actually. As is everything else. The "stuff" is merely differentiated, but fundamentally remains the same "stuff". A rock, space, time (arguably, time does not actually exist, it is a perceptive tool used by an observer, remove the observer and "time" is meaningless, ceasing to exist), a duck, this computer, all of it...same stuff, different packaging.
And you know there is no ghost of the universe because...?
Would you mind if you were repackaged as, say, a lifeless corpse? Or would you be indifferent to it?
See how this goes?
I actually don't know that for a fact. It's a belief, a dear assumption if you prefer.
The mosquito values it's life as much as I value mine, and you yours, and yet we squish them with no concern when they try to bite us. However they are only trying to eat, so really, squish a mosquito because the itch is inconvenient, or kill the guy ahead of you line, because he is slow to make up his mind...both ways a life is ended for your comfort. The second involves a human, so we attribute more value to it, but there shouldn't be.
As for life being good, I am enjoying the experience and learning from it, and in my philosophy, all learning is good, therefore life is good. However, who am I to say your life, or someone else's life is good? That is their call to make, not mine.
Your assumption is there is no ghost in the universe. My philosophy is that the "ghost" is the universe. You have it, I have it, everything has it.
Searle, though not an idealist, described the difference in physical and mental properties as so:
Mental
Subjective
Qualitative
Intentional
Not spatially located & Nonextended in space
Not explainable by physical
processes
Incapable of acting causally
Physical
Objective
Quantitative Nonintentional Spatially located & Spatially extended Causally explainable by
microphysics
Acts causally and as a
on the physical
system is causally closed
Coincidentally, and perhaps more to your point, his “solution” is to claim this is essentially a false dichotomy.
Here is the link to the PDF version of his book “Mind: A Brief Introduction” if you’re interested. The above was on page 127.
Would you look at that!
Quoting Pinprick
Quoting Pinprick
Well this seems like quite a problem. This definition will at best lead to epiphenomenology. Again, as I said, when you make up two fundamentally different substances, that means they can’t interact. One that’s done, you need both categories. If you say everything is physical by this definition, you miss out one things that are subjective qualitative and intentional. If you say everything is mental you miss out on unintentional processes.
If you want a monism it has to include all the properties (assuming these truly cover everything together) but then you’re just advocating “thingism” , even if you refer to it as “idealism” or “physicalism”
By this reasoning, it's a-okay to kill people... Hence your monism cannot support a healthy human society but may be useful philosophy for serial killers.
What are you advocating for, then? Anything? Nothing?
Quoting khaled
I fully agree. The same holds for Dualism. "Variations" exist because you cannot explain everything but just using a "label". This is why I personally avoid to use "-isms" and "-ists". They are boxes that limit a subject, attribute, idea, etc. The can be devoid of meaning. For example, what would be the meaning of saying "I am a nihilist"? Each person would get a different idea about me! Well, if they get one! :smile:
On the other hand, these "-isms" help in just distinguishing between two attributes, ideas, etc. For example, if I say "This is a monistic view", I would be more or less clear what I mean, esp. if it's compared to a "dualistic view". But of course, this can be useful only in vague terms.
So, yes, I agree that there should be a single "Monism". And "Dualism" and every other "-ism". They are philosophical concepts, and people, when using them in discussions, must think about the same thing and agree on their definitions. Otherwise, misunderstandings, confusions etc., get unnecessarily in the way.
You and the mosquitoes are in the same business. They try to suck your blood and you try to avoid malaria, dengue, etc. Unites States was forged on the largest genocide in history. 50 million natives were exterminated. Nor were the Indians peaceful. They were already killing each other. The 6 million of "the final solution" are comparatively speaking a trifle. The world has always been ruled by murderers, not serial, but mass. You may not like it. But nobody said life was fair. One thing is what the duty is and another what happens.
Not even me! What I am driving at is that a philosophy should not just be about what is the case, which is rather the domain of science, but also and primarily in what ought to be the case, which behaviors are desirable and which are not. What goals should we pursue? etc.
For me, a decent philosophy cannot be value-less.
That seems more like the domain of the Christian religion (because paganism doesn't seem interested in duty either).
Paganism? Can you be a little more specific? The voodoo? The norse gods? The cult of Isis? Hinduism?
Perhaps you should consider why you are offended by my claiming that everything is of equal value. The answer may help solve other issues in your life.
If it's all the same stuff, is there anything that matters? And if yes, what would that be? IOW, can monism sustain a hierarchy of values? It seems not. If "everything is of equal value" then nothing is of any particular value...
First, scientists claimed that matter is made of atoms. That didn't do the trick and upon further investigation, atoms were found to be combinations of protons, neutrons, electrons. With this monism lost ground. Not to worry for soon it was discovered that protons, electrons, neutrons were made up of quarks. Monism, the prodigal son, makes the comeback. Not so fast though: there were different kinds of quarks and monism again faded away into oblivion. What's next? Another particle but then if we look at the trend, every new particle seems to come in different flavors, we should give up the idea of a single fundamental substance; in other words, monism fails.
The pattern: Every time we reduce reality to a single substance, we're faced with the problem of having to reconcile contradictory qualities, something impossible. Does it make more sense to insist that monism is true and that all contradictions are illusions or to abandon monism as nonsensical. The choice: contradiction OR no to monism.
But materialism definitely false, agreed. Not everything is made up of matter. For instance: Electromagnetic waves.
Physicalism ftw!
:up:
A monotheistic point of view vs. a polytheistic point of view, an extremely fragile compromise it seems khaled. So instead of saying there's a Ahura mazda (+) and an Angra manyu (-), two distinct entities, there's actually only one Allah who has two qualities, peaceful and wrathful. I wonder if this logic can be applied to split-personality disorders?
So yes, there's an up quark, a down quark, etc. but they aren't separate things, as in they're all quarks.
It seems monotheism is Occam's razor in action - different qualities need not entail different entities.
That said, contradictions are a cause for concern.
This is not an argument against monism. The fact that a circle is not a square is also no argument against geometry. Monism means that everything consists of only one substance. In the broadest sense matter is, what something weighs, applies also to light.
Just a thought, that's all.
I can sympathize with the non-monist point of view in that it's basically a solution to contradictions that are baked into systems that subscribe to some kind of unitary substance/principle.
One way to save monism is to rope in Cronus, Father time. Yes, he ate his sons but let's ignore that for the moment. An apple isn't, I've never seen it happening, both green (unripe) and red (ripe) at the same time but it does go from green to red as Cronus' heartbeat ticks off time but, it's the same friggin' apple. Thus, there's one substance/principle (monism) and it does assume qualities which maybe opposites but a contradiction doesn't occur because of temporal separation.
Greco-Roman paganism never speaks of helping the weak. For instance. Rather, they were thrown into the circus.
Which is one of the reasons the Christians screwed them in the end. The pagan Roman's lack of empathy for the weak was their weakness.
But it does not follow that the Romans of old had no interest in duty, or had no moral values. They just had different values than the Christian ones... As often the case with Indo-European cultures, the Roman values originally were very warlike. They started with the general concept of virtus (from which comes the English word "virtue"), meaning 'manliness' (vir=man).
Then this concept evolved overtime and expanded to become lists of several virtus.
The Roman state, be it the Republic or Empire, never issued a formal, codified list of virtus, nor much definition of the concept, which was from old time religion and probably so ubiquitous that no one needed a definition or a list. Therefore any such list is a modern construct patched together from various ancient authors. This caveat said, here is one from wikipedia:
Abundantia: "Abundance, Plenty" The ideal of there being enough food and prosperity for all segments of society. A public virtue.
Auctoritas – "spiritual authority" – the sense of one's social standing, built up through experience, Pietas, and Industria. This was considered to be essential for a magistrate's ability to enforce law and order.
Comitas – "humour" – ease of manner, courtesy, openness, and friendliness.
Constantia – "perseverance" – military stamina, as well as general mental and physical endurance in the face of hardship.
Clementia – "mercy" – mildness and gentleness, and the ability to set aside previous transgressions.
Dignitas – "dignity" – a sense of self-worth, personal self-respect and self-esteem.
Disciplina – "discipline" – considered essential to military excellence; also connotes adherence to the legal system, and upholding the duties of citizenship.
Fides – "good faith" – mutual trust and reciprocal dealings in both government and commerce (public affairs), a breach meant legal and religious consequences.
Firmitas – "tenacity" – strength of mind, and the ability to stick to one's purpose at hand without wavering.
Frugalitas – "frugality" – economy and simplicity in lifestyle.
Gravitas – "gravity" – a sense of the importance of the matter at hand; responsibility, and being earnest.
Honestas – "respectability" – the image and honor that one presents as a respectable member of society.
Humanitas – "humanity" – refinement, civilization, learning, and generally being cultured.
Industria – "industriousness" – hard work.
Innocencia – "selfless" – Roman charity, always give without expectation of recognition, always give while expecting no personal gain, incorruptibility.
Laetitia – "Joy, Gladness" – The celebration of thanksgiving, often of the resolution of crisis, a public virtue.
Nobilitas – "Nobility" – Man of fine appearance, deserving of honor, highly esteemed social rank, and, or, nobility of birth, a public virtue.
Justitia – "justice" – sense of moral worth to an action; personified by the goddess Iustitia, the Roman counterpart to the Greek Themis.
Pietas – "dutifulness" – more than religious piety; a respect for the natural order: socially, politically, and religiously. Includes ideas of patriotism, fulfillment of pious obligation to the gods, and honoring other human beings, especially in terms of the patron and client relationship, considered essential to an orderly society.
Prudentia – "prudence" – foresight, wisdom, and personal discretion.
Salubritas – "wholesomeness" – general health and cleanliness, personified in the deity Salus.
Severitas – "sternness" – self-control, considered to be tied directly to the virtue of gravitas.
Veritas – "truthfulness" – honesty in dealing with others, personified by the goddess Veritas. Veritas, being the mother of Virtus, was considered the root of all virtue; a person living an honest life was bound to be virtuous.
Virtus – "manliness" – valor, excellence, courage, character, and worth.
You speak to a Latinist and Hellenist by profession. Read the Iliad and Aeneid before cutting and pasting from a dictionary. The list you give is the Christian translation of Latin terms.
...any more than anything else. Yes, that is correct. If one cannot determine an appropriate course of action for one's life and motivations, simply because they have lost perceived value, or "specialness", the flaw is within them, perhaps they should determine why they need to feel so special in order to have value. Regardless, it is not a flaw of the underlying system, the flaw is perception based.
Latin translated to support Christian perspectives. Seriously, how is this a question? ALL translations are limited, and directed, by the lens of the translator.
I thought as much. Yours must be a very boring world, where everything is in the same shade of grey.
Most entertaining example I can think of: The movie title "The Matrix", Keanu Reeves, Lawrence Fishburne, etc. The French poster for that film had the film as "Les Jeunes qui porte des lunettes de Soleil." Which means "young people that wear sunglasses". Hardly an accurate translation, although accurate in itself, as most of the film involves younger people wearing sunglasses.
That is simply not true. The film was released in France under the English title "Matrix". By the way, your absurdist French title up there is also grammatically incorrect, on top of being a lie.
If that is how you chose to see it. Sad for you, but there it is. Clearly you need to be externally validated as special in order to maintain your world view, which seems limiting, and bankrupt, but that is where you are at apparently. I do not need that level of external validation. I matter to me because I want to, and everything that matters to me does so at my will. These items have value because I have assigned them value, if I were removed from the equation, and no one were to assign them value in my place, they would have no value above anything else. There is no lesser being, there is no higher being, and nothing worthless. I find it a very liberating perspective.
Oh I'm sure it is liberating to have no value at all. It's just
not practical for a society though.
Quoting Book273
No, you did not.
Quoting Book273
My world is dualist, or rather pluralist. There is more than just one kind of stuff in it, or dimension or whatever you want to call it. It's a diverse world, where ideas coexist with matter. I take the particle-wave duality as being an indication that things are more complex than reductionists think. Also a big fan of the form-substance duality of Aristotle.
Quoting Olivier5
I had not realized the discussion had "practical for society" as one of it's fundamental tenets. Hard to capture a universal truth theory that also caters to the whims of a human creation. I will move forward from my position and will file "society" under irrelevant with respect to it's place in my theory.
Still, form is different from substance.
Quoting Book273
The discussion is whatever we want it to be. To me, the question of ethics is important so I discuss it. If you don't think ethics are important, talk about whatever you think is important... Though I suspect that nothing is really important in a monist view, nothing is salient, hence nothing is really worth saying. Everything is irrelevant to your theory, and vice versa your theory is irrelevant to anything or anybody else than you.
Christianity became the Roman state religion with Constantine. All the terminological senses that you contribute as contitutives of the Roman axiology are Christian. Between the 6th century BC and the year 313 AD there was a long time in which the prevailing axiology was paganism, which has to do with the speech of Thrasymachus, but nothing with what you attribute to it.
This is probably right. The only alternative would be to outright deny that the properties from the other side (idealism/physicalism) exists. But at the end of the day we created these categories, as well as their criteria, so we can always choose to define things in such a way that it “supports” whatever position we hold. For example, simplifying the definition of “physical” to be synonymous with detectable; if we can detect it, it’s physical; or making “mind” synonymous with qualia or experience itself.
Jumping from the Roman world to the Greek does not favor his speech. A Greek citizen was not a woman, not a wage earner, not a slave, not a young man, not an old man. You should read Politics by Aristotle. The cited opinion of Thrasymachus appears in the Republic. Also the ideas in favor of eugenics. We really don't know anything about Socrates. He didn't write anything. Xenophon describes him as someone very religious, a fundamentalist. Plato's evaluation was very uneven. In Apology he introduced a hero. In the Sophist to a charlatan. He forgot about him after that dialogue. But Plato is not to be trusted. He collects many opinions with which he habitually disagrees.
You manipulate the historical discourse to your liking. What you define as philosophy belongs to a very specific discourse, the Christian one.
You jumped first by mentioning Thrasymachus.
Quoting Primperan
That made no sense. I haven't defined philosophy quite yet and there is more than one single Christian discourse.
Quoting Primperan
I have the greatest respect for history and would never do that. You on the other hand seems like a peddler of alternative historical narratives. Like the ridiculous idea that pagans in antiquity had no moral concern.
you don't understand what you don't want to understand. Bye.
When we encounter differences, there are two ways of handling them:
1. Posit different entities. For example if, through a peephole, I'm first shown the color black and then the color white, I would say that there are two objects; one (say) coal (black) and the other snow (white). Pluralism!
2. Posit different properties: For example, sticking to the two colors black & white and the peephole, I'd say that there's only one object but with two different properties; a penguin/zebra (part black, part white). Monism!
With pluralism as it is we have multiple properties but we're also fielding multiple entities.
With monism we only have many properties but only one entity.
If we let William if Occam decide, monism is the way to go.