Can someone explain the Interaction Problem?
My Modern Philosophy Professor was teaching us that the medievals attempted to make a metaphysic around substance through aristotle's 4 causes. However the problem was that they could not account for "interaction" between substances. The moderns would then recreate metaphysics around this problem with the rationalists creating a bizarre version of the world and the empiricists who were skeptical about finding an explanations between causal "interaction". Could someone explain if the picture is accurate and explain what this problem of interaction is more thoroughly?
Comments (33)
It's the mind/body problem. And also the level of movement problem. The second entails the fact that no amount of microphysics can explain biological movement, and no amount of chemistry can explain phsychological movement. ETC. They are all real, measured, measurable, predictable, scientific, yet there is no interactive predicative or explanatory features between levels of movement.
The mind/body problem is so simple to understand that I shan't insult anyone's intelligence by explaining it. Basically it says that the mind is real, the body is real, the mind is connected to the body, but how and where?
Ever since Plato introduced the "tripartite soul", there hasn't really been an interaction problem, because the principles are there to resolve it, for anyone who wants to. "Spirit" is the third feature which accounts for the interaction between body and mind.
The interaction problem is commonly presented by monists who reject the eternal Forms of Platonism. It is argued that eternal forms could not interact with temporal bodies. But as Aristotle showed, so long as the two distinct substances are represented as actual, therefore active, there is no problem with interaction between dual substances. The appearance of a problem is a result of representing one of the two substances as necessarily passive, by being eternal, outside of time. This indicates that the understand of time which is involved with the concept of "eternal forms" is faulty. So the "interaction problem" is the manifestation of a misunderstanding of time.
The reason why it is argued that eternal Forms cannot interact is that they are eternal, therefore outside of time, unchanging and necessarily inactive, as activity requires time. If we allow that immaterial Forms are active, they are only outside of time if time is conceived of as being a property of physical change.
Quoting Dannation99
I'm not sure of the problem you are asking about here.
That's quite a philosophy. Right there.
Yes, quite. Metaphysician Undercover's ontology, in a nutshell
Introducing another substance just adds fuel to the fire.
The interaction between "substances" is a problem for naive realists who believe that the world is as they see it, rather than symbolizing how the world is. It's as if they think that the symbols (the brain) are distinct from the symbolizing (the mind).
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
What this is basically saying is that two substances are more similar than dissimilar, something that leans more towards monism. The point being is that you have to represent the substances as being more similar in order to explain how they interact.
So instead of introducing the supernatural (the eternal) to account for the natural. It's all natural, including gods and where they live, if they were to exist.
The third named thing is not another substance though, it's more like a name for the zone of interaction.
Quoting Harry Hindu
That's not what I meant. All you are saying, is that by naming them both as "substance", they are therefore more similar than dissimilar. But that does not follow logically at all. Placing two things in the same category doesn't mean that they are necessarily more similar than dissimilar. All I did was find some principle of similarity, such that the two could be placed in the same category. In no way does this indicate that they are more similar than dissimilar. "Substance dualism" does not imply that the two proposed substances are more similar than dissimilar because they are both called substance.
If we deny absolute passivity as impossible, unreal, because it is not in any possible way actual, then it is excluded from our discussion, and our two opposing extremes are both forms of activity, they are actual. One could be extremely fast and the other extremely slow for example, but they are opposing extremes, and it makes no sense to say that they are more similar than dissimilar. Now, if we want to validate these two as acceptable extremes we need to substantiate them. Since they are opposing extremes each will be substantiated by a different demonstration, hence distinct substances.
Quoting Harry Hindu
I think it's a fool who equates the supernatural with the eternal. We do not need to apprehend "eternal" to apprehend "supernatural". What I've been trying to say, is that the dichotomy which pits the eternal as opposed to the temporal, resulting in the interaction problem, is not a fair representation of classical dualism. It's a strawman.
I'm not sure I'm getting what you're saying. Are you saying that spirit is the medium that this interaction takes place? Wouldn't that already be covered by the actual substance? I'm just not seeing a need to complicate things by adding more to the mix.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
You're the one that used the term, "substances". I was merely reiterating your point that it is faulty to think of the two "substances" in such a way that makes them incompatible. That is precisely what dualism does. Monism is more like an endeavor to do exactly what you were proposing - in understanding that:Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Its just a paraphrasing of my assertion that dualism creates the problem of interaction by representing mind and body as distinct - one being passive and eternal, and the other temporal - unless I'm just not getting what you're trying to say.
I can't see your point Harry. If we have liquid water and solid ice, and someone argues that ice is never liquid, and liquid is never ice, therefore the two can never interact, we must explain freezing and thawing in order to understand the interaction. It's just the way that reality is. Sometimes adding more to the mix is the only way to understand. Reality is complicated, and denying the complications is not the way to understand.
Quoting Harry Hindu
Why do you think that dualism makes the two substances incompatible? That's the strawman representation which allows the monist to insist that the two substances cannot interact. But clearly they do interact, and dualism respects that fact. In another sense of the word "substance" for example, iron and gold are distinct substances, but they both have protons, neutrons, and electrons, so they are not incompatible. Why would you suppose that in substance dualism "substance" is used to represent two incompatible things? As I implied in my last post, the fact that the two are both called by the same name, "substance" indicates that they are not incompatible.
Quoting Harry Hindu
I think you're just not getting what I'm saying. We can represent two things as distinct, hydrogen and oxygen for example, but the fact that they are described as distinct does not create a problem of interaction. There is only a problem of interaction if the two distinct things are represented as incapable of interacting with each other. This is the strawman type of representation which monists project onto substance dualism, to create the illusion of an interaction problem. But of course it's just a strawman because substance dualists do not represent the two substances as incapable of interacting with each other, as I've explained. They represent them as interacting. The fact that explaining the interaction requires adding more to the mix is just a feature of the complexities of reality.
Drugs. As in "substance abuse".
Hence, it is matter, in gaseous, liquid or solid form, which comprises atoms, and/or molecules, either in homogenous or in mixed forms.
Salt is a substance.
Wood is a substance.
Air is a substance.
This is just dumb. We don't use thawing as an explanation to explain the interaction between ice and liquid. Why do we need "thawing" to explain how a glass of liquid behaves when ice cubes are dropped inside it. Thawing doesn't explain how the liquid gets displaced then the glass overflows. Physics is what explains that.
I have a better example that we can use. How does software interact with hardware? Do we need to assert the existence of spirits to account for how software and hardware interact in your computer?
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
LOL. All you are saying here is that dualism is actually monism. If the dualist is saying that the two "substances" aren't incompatible, then that is monism. What is the point of asserting two "substances" if you aren't asserting that there are only two fundamental substances that are distinct from each other? What properties do these "substances" share. What properties differ? What percentage of properties differ versus what percentage they share? At what point do we say that the substances differ enough to qualify as dualism being the case vs. monism?
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Yes, but WHO is saying that they are distinct and incompatible? Its obviously isn't the monist.
Duh, the thawing ice adds to the quantity of liquid.
Quoting Harry Hindu
Electricity?
Quoting Harry Hindu
Well, I think if monists are ready to accept that there are two distinct substances, material and immaterial, which are not completely incompatible because they are both actual substances, and interact, then I think the better description is that monism is actually dualism.
Quoting Harry Hindu
The "point" is that these questions remain unanswered, and they need to be answered in order for us to have an adequate understanding of reality, like wave/particle duality in physics for example. There is no point in pretending that the two substances are actually one and the same, and insisting that we can understand reality without representing them as distinct, and thereby forcing the need to answer these questions.
What does this mean? The amount if heat determines the state of some object.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
What does it means to declare material and immaterial as "substances"? It seems to me that immaterial would be the opposite of material. There are many substances that interact, so why focus on only two types?
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
This doesn't address my question. What is the distinction between immaterial and material? There are more than two types of substances that interact. You need to explain what a substance is and why being a substance allows interactions with other things that are substances.
No, the amount of heat is a measurement, and all that is determined with this measurement is the object's temperature. That measurement does not determine the state of the object. You could apply some logic though, to say if it's H2O, and it's below 0 degrees Celsius it's likely in a solid state, but the amount of heat does not determine the object's state.
Quoting Harry Hindu
These are the two types of substance which are philosophically interesting, as ontologically fundamental, that's why I focus on them.
Quoting Harry Hindu
Sorry I didn't see that question. If you're really interested, then study some philosophy. Plato is a good place to start. But learning that distinction is a long process and I'm not a paid professor. So, sorry again, but I won't oblige.
Of course the measurement doesn't determine the state of the object. I never said that it did. What is measured determines the state of the object.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
The fact that you find them interesting has no bearing on whether or not they are ontologically fundamental. In fact, your interest implies that they are epistemological in nature rather than ontological. You need to define "substance" to explain why only two things qualify as a substance and not all the other things that interact.
How do you know that there are two fundamental substances when all you know about one substance is by the way it appears in the other? Are material objects in your immaterial mind? Is the material world represented immaterially?
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
It wasn't just that question you skipped over. But if you are just going to cite some long-dead human without acknowledging that they would probably not say the same thing if they were alive today knowing what we know now, then I'm not going to find your reply very interesting.
No, what is measured, in the case of measuring the heat, does not determine the state of the object. As I explained, further deductive logic is required. You point the thermometer at the object and it gives you the temperature. It does not tell you whether it is frozen or liquid.
Quoting Harry Hindu
What I meant is that they are interesting to me because they are ontologically fundamental. if you want to dispute that, as not evident to you, then that is your prerogative. But so far you are quibbling over nonsensical strawman representations, refusing to go anywhere near that subject.
Quoting Harry Hindu
Actually, it is you who is trying to turn this from an ontological issue into an epistemological issue, by insisting on a definition. In metaphysics we take the term, and attempt to determine what it refers to, through the usage presented, to determine the actual reality, or unreality (in the case of misunderstanding) of that thing referred to. To start with a definition would only prejudice the inquiry, misleading us, as Plato demonstrated in the case of "knowledge" in his "Theaetetus".
So, in this case, we are starting with the assumption that there are two fundamental substances, and we are inquiring whether there is an interaction problem between them. My argument is that the supposed interaction problem is only the result of defining "substance" in a prejudicial way, which creates the illusion of an interaction problem. If we adhere to normal usage of "substance" there is no such interaction problem.
Your objection appears to be why is there supposed to be two fundamental substances rather than a different number. This is the result of previous metaphysics, which sees the need for a distinction between material substance and immaterial. And as I explained, it is supported by modern physics with wave (immaterial), particle (material) duality. Clearly, the physics of waves is distinct from the physics of particles, as the substance of each is different, yet there is some form of interaction.
Quoting Harry Hindu
I don't quite get this question, but I'll try to answer what I apprehend that you are asking. There is immaterial substance within my mind. And, I infer that there is immaterial substance in your mind. But there is something which separates our minds, a medium between us, which is evidently material substance. You might wish to call it something else, but I think it's acceptable and customary to refer to this medium which separates our minds as material substance. Do you not agree that it is also acceptable and customary to refer to the ideas and concepts within your mind and my mind as immaterial substance? If not, I think that you are attempting to force a definition of "substance" which is unacceptable. What are your epistemic standards for "substance" then?
Quoting Harry Hindu
Doesn't the fact that the words of some "long-dead human" still exist, and are still respected by many as authoritative mean anything to you? I suppose that you could just reject the idea that there is any importance to those words, and assume that this is all a random coincidence, that the words still exist and are accepted by many as authoritative. But since the words of billions of other human beings who have lived in the time period between then and now, are not respected as authoritative, and are therefore not still existing, I think it is only a fool who would make such an assumption.
As you said, it's a "mighty fine assumption", and that's because it's based in true experience. That's what distinguishes it from many other metaphysical assumptions which tend to be purely speculative conjectures based in some fantasy.
Quoting tim wood
Of course, everyone knows that a model is a model, and that it's reality is as a model. I think that's sort of obvious. And this is fundamental to substance dualism. What substantiates the model as something real, it's dependence on a mind, is completely different from what substantiates the reality of the thing being modeled, as not necessarily dependent on a mind. Hence substance dualism.
What scientific theory says that waves are immaterial?
The wave-particle duality is an epistemological distinction, not an ontological one.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
You are making an unwarranted assertion that the medium between minds is different than the medium of your mind - hence you create the problem of dualism that you are attempting to fix, and the way you are fixing it is to assert that the mediums are not so different after all, which is more like what monism is saying. So you keep going back and forth between the mediums being distinct, yet similar. Which is it, and how much do the mediums need to share before you agree that they are the same type of substance?
The assumption was never hidden. The assumption is the basis for dualism. If dualists are just going to start asserting that mind and body aren't so different after all, then what is the difference between a dualist and a monist?
Have you studied any physics. Science holds that waves are patterns of motion within a material substance composed of parts. They are a change in the relations between the parts of the material substance. As such, the substance is material and the wave is immaterial.
Quoting Harry Hindu
What are you talking about Harry? Wave-particle duality is a description supposed to be concerning the reality of what is, therefore it is ontological. It refers to two distinct aspects of the same situation being described, the wavefunction, and the particle. It is not two distinct descriptions of the very same thing, therefore not an epistemological distinction. Failure to recognize that the "wavefunction" and "the particle" refer to two distinct things assuming that they both refer to the very same thing, would create many contradictions. Epistemology does not allow contradiction therefore we must maintain that the distinction is ontological.
Quoting Harry Hindu
It's clearly not unwarranted. Something must constitute the separation between minds. If what was between your mind and my mind was the same thing as what's in my mind, and the same as what's in your mind, there would be no separation between our minds. However, we experience separation. We cannot posit a real boundary between one thing and another, unless there is a different sort of substance which constitutes the boundary. A boundary is only real (substantial) if there is a difference of substance. If it is all water, within my mind, and yours, and everywhere between us, then there is no separation between us. If it is evident that there is a separation, as it is, then we need to posit another substance which forms the boundary.
Well, in my humble opinion, the question has its roots in the perceived difficulty in coming to terms with material-immaterial interaction but that's just another way of saying that the two don't/shouldn't interact and that's physicalism in disguise.
If one is a non-physicalist, there's the material body and the immaterial mind, and going by how things are, they do interact. How else does everybody get around?
I maybe a mile off the mark but that's how I fee.
I certainly have, and no where have I seen the word, "immaterial" used to describe waves. As I have already pointed out, material and immaterial are opposites. The OP is basically asking how opposites interact. Well MU, how do opposites interact?
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Which is the same as saying that pattern and the substance are one and the same as you can never have one without the other - ontologically. The distinction you are talking about only exists in your mind as language concepts.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
It's missing the critical component of consciousness as an observer and how the mind is only a representation of what is happening, not a clear window to what is actually happening.
I am now wondering if part of the problem is that dualists seem to think that they see the world as it is (naive realists), and how it appears is different than how it is thought about - hence dualism. You think that the duality exists ontologically, and are unwilling to ponder the possibility that the way it appears in the mind may be different than how it actually is (but that isn't necessarily saying that we can never know about how it actually is). What I'm basically arguing is that particle-wave duality is like a mirage or a bent straw in a glass of water with ice. - an illusion. Illusions, however, are ontological. Their interpretation is epistemological. Epistemology is about the ontology of knowledge. All dualisms resolve to a monism.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Pay attention to the bolded part: This can be said about earth, water, fire and air, so why dualism? Your focus on mind and body being special and fundamental would simply be a personal fetish with the two.
You're assuming that there can't be different kinds of one "substance" (again, you haven't even explained what you mean by the word, or what qualifies as a "substance", so until you do, I'm assuming that you don't know what you're actually talking about when you use that word). Just as we have all the different elements that are just different configurations of atoms, we can have different configurations of one "substance". There are different configurations of the same "substance" between the configurations that are our minds.
Maybe the physicalist is humbly asking how opposites interact? If the dualist is going to use terms that are opposites to describe the world, then it is incumbent upon them to explain how they interact. The monist - whether they are a physicalist, idealist, or something else (like me) - doesn't have that problem because they are not using opposite terms to describe the world.
Essentially, the dualists' problem is language-use - using words in antiquated ways that stem from the religious notion that mind can exist apart from the body.
Why can't opposites interact?
Have you seen a battery? There's a negative pole and a positive. You put a wire across, and if the battery is strong enough you'll see sparks. That's how opposites interact.
Quoting Harry Hindu
The pattern, and the substance, are not the same, because the pattern is a mental construct, an abstraction, and the substance is what is independent. We observe the activity and replicate it as "a pattern". But the pattern of waves on water is applicable to other substances, therefore the pattern and the substance are not one and the same. It's the same principle as any property. The property and the substance are not one and the same, because the property is the creation of our sense perception. We see an object as red, but many other objects will be seen as red also. Therefore the property and the substance are not one and the same. The property is a feature of our perception.
However, if we want to allow that the property, or abstraction which is within our mindshas real existence, we need to provide it with a designation of "substance" because substance is what supports the reality of existence. The substance which supports mental things must be different from the substance which supports independent things or else we would have no way to distinguish fact from fiction, as fictions have real (substantial) existence within the mind, but not independent from the mind.
Quoting Harry Hindu
The fact that how the thing appears to the mind is different from how it is independent from the mind is evidence of the reality of dualism. This is because we must account for the existence of both, the appearance, and the independent object. Existence is supported by substance. There is a difference between the independent object and the appearance. The difference cannot be a difference of form because the form of the object is what we come to know, and this would mean we could not know the object because the two forms would be different.. Therefore the difference must be a difference of what underlies, or supports the form, and this is substance.
Quoting Harry Hindu
It's a matter of reduction. There is only a need for two substances to account for the existence of minds and the medium between minds. Being a monist, you have no prerogative for that objection. You want to reduce all to one. The dualist simply points out to the monist, that there needs to be two fundamentally distinct substances, to account for the reality of separation between minds. If you can pull yourself away from your monist assumptions and accept the reality of the need for dual substances, then we can apply the dualist principles and see if a need for other substances arises. So far it has not. But you, insisting on monism are in no place to talk about a possible need for a further multitude of fundamental substances.
Quoting Harry Hindu
Yes, I agree that there are different configurations of the same substance between our minds. However, within our minds must be a different substance or else there would be no real separation (no real boundary) between our minds. Our minds would interact directly. Hence the need for two distinct substances and no more than two. And if we assume that it is the case that only the different configurations are what have boundaries, then we still need a distinct substance which constitutes those boundaries. Again, we have a need for two distinct substances and no more than two. The need for two distinct substances is unavoidable.