For IchneumanWasp, Geoff's neutral monism clarified.

[UndercoverElephant]

If anyone wants an overview of the history and current state of neutral monism go here:

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/neutral-monism/

It is a historically diverse position, my own version is a new version of it, but it holds true to the basic tenets of the position.


COPYRIGHT GEOFF. Please do not re-use this material. It does not belong to the JREF either.

Wasp and anyone else interested,

My own position is the result of long process of elimination of other positions and of inductive evidence from a wide variety of sources, most of them sciences. It also, unlike all of the other answers, attempts to explain why there is something instead of nothing. Please try to "unthink" your materialist assumptions when trying to understand my position.

I am asking nobody to just “accept” this. I am explaining this only because I want people to have a better idea where I am coming from. I am not attempting to “prove” it is the “correct answer”. If anyone responds with “Prove it!” or “You still haven’t given us any reason to disbelieve materialism!” then I’m not going to reply – we already have another thread for those objections. I will answer further questions about this system. I am in a tiny minority in that I hold to a system like this one. It is not for people with a strong herding instinct. It supplied for those who are interested only. If anyone actually chose to adopt it, then it would be a pleasant surprise for me. I am not lifegazer. I do not want everyone to believe I have solved the answers to life, the universe, and everything.

The core of neutral monism is a claim that reality is unitary and that mind and matter are manifestations of the unified system, leaving me to specifiy

a) the nature of the neutral entities
b) the relationship between the neutral entities and "mind"
c) the relationship between the neutral entities and "matter"

Here goes:

a) The nature of the neutral entities.

The neutral entities are closely related to mathematical entities with the crucial difference that Zero has been replaced with something that isn't merely nothing. The result is what I am going to call 0-mathematics. It is specified in detail here :

http://everythingforever.com/st_math.htm

Zero is the ultimate neutral entity. It is the foundation of this system. From this zero, in perfectly symmetrical fashion, the whole of mathematics hangs off, and when taken together all of these mathematical entities also cancel out to Zero. As a result, the entire system is neutral. When the “logical grinder” has finished grinding, all that is left is Zero, literally leaving nothing to explain. Somewhere in the neutral realm of 0-math there is an 0-math entity which IS the neutral entity underlying our own reality. NOTE: This is very different to the sort of mathematisation Husserl is talking about. Firstly, the entity I am describing is not directly mappable onto the physical universe – although some future branch of QM or new branch of physics could conceivably describe it one day. Secondly I am openly declaring that this 0-math structure actually IS the neutral entity in question.

As far as our reality goes, this neutral entity is all which exists. Both mind and matter can be specified in terms of it, but it is neither mental nor is it physical.

b) What “mind” is.

Whilst the parts of the 0-math neutral entity (0MNE) do not directly correspond to physical reality, they do indirectly correspond. In other words, there are parts of the 0MNE which correspond to physical brains and there are parts of the 0MNE which correspond to other parts of physical reality. There are also internal causal relationships between those different parts i.e. the exact state of the part which corresponds to physical brains is partially determined by the state of other parts of the 0MNE via normal empirical causation. What we call “mind” is the result of the relationship between Zero and the part of the 0MNE which corresponds to a brain.

c) What “matter” is.

Physical things have caused a lot of confusion. According to this system, what we usually call “physical things” are a subset of mental things. In other words, they appear in “minds” as defined above. They are components of mental experiences or minds. However, since the content of “minds” is causally dependent on other parts of the 0MNE, these “physical things” are also related to things outside of minds – just NOT “Physical things outside of minds”. Instead they are “neutral things outside of minds”.

d) What idealism gets wrong.

Idealism is wrong because the only part of the system it recognises is the Zero (which it sees at the subject or the experiencer) and the part of the 0MNE corresponding to a brain. It denies the existence of the other non-brain parts of the 0MNE. Since these both exist, and causally determine the state of the brain-part of the 0MNE, idealism is wrong. It is also quite correct to say that there are things which are mind-independent. Now, the idealist may argue that there has to be a relationship between the Zero and the non-brain parts of the 0MNE and they may well argue that this is “mental” in the sense that it corresponds to “the mind of God”. This is a misuse of the term “mental”. There may well have to be such a relationship, but it is entirely mistaken to call it “mental”, and it is a mistake to say that there is nothing which exists independently of the relationship I have defined as “mind”, and it may be a mistake to refer to "the mind of God" at all. There is indeed a mind-independent reality. It just isn’t physical.

e) What materialism gets wrong.

Materialism makes two mistakes. Firstly, it misidentifies the “physical representations” of a mind-independent reality for the neutral mind-independent reality itself. What we experience as “physical” are components of the part of the 0MNE which corresponds to a brain. They are not, and cannot possibly be, self-existing "physical" things. In this sense, idealism is correct. Materialists seem to think that the ultimate existents are the same as these “physical” things we experience and that leads to all of their problems. They truly have confused the map with territory. Secondly, materialism totally ignores the role of the subject or the Zero.

f) What dualism gets wrong.

Dualism ignores both the 0MNE and the subject. As a result it ends up claiming that instead of mind and matter being two different components of a single neutral system they are two different realms which exist independently.

I hope now that people will at least now be able to ask me questions about this, and will stop attributing to me things which I do not believe and have not claimed.

“Proving” this is the best system would require me to have already written the book I intend to write when I have finished my studies. Exercises like this are partly to learn about the main misunderstandings and objections that people will raise, so I can anticipate them and work out the best responses. So can ask that people try to be constructive in their criticism? This is a work in progress.

Geoff

 

[UndercoverElephant]

Posted by Paul:

Originally Posted by Geoff : Do you understand why Zero is neutral?

No.

~~ Paul

Zero is the very essence of neutrality. If you go to google and ask for a definition of what "neutral" means then all the definitions are of the form "neither X nor not-X". "X" and "not-X" are placeholders for "positive" and "negative". In other words, all the definitions of neutral follow a pattern where something is defined as positive (X) and something is defined as negative (not-X), and neutral is defined as being neither. The relationship between Zero, positiveness and negativeness is therefore the underlying pattern which defines all the other definitions of neutrality. It is the master case. Zero is neither positive nor is it negative. It is in fact the ONLY "thing" which relates to all cases of neutrality.

Can you think of anything which is more obviously neutral than Zero?

 

[Cosmo]

Can you think of anything which is more obviously neutral than Zero?

Nothing/nothingness. Not quite the same as zero, and doesn't make nearly as many assumptions.

Edit: It also seems to me that your concept of 'neutral' is hopelessly anthropocentric.

 

[drkitten]

The neutral entities are closely related to mathematical entities with the crucial difference that Zero has been replaced with something that isn't merely nothing. The result is what I am going to call 0-mathematics. It is specified in detail here :

http://everythingforever.com/st_math.htm

That page is gibberish. It isn't right -- it isn't even wrong.

I could give you a detailed assessment of that page -- but, basically, it's a restatement of paradoxes that were solved over a century ago and doesn't even recognize the paradoxes, or the solution. Instead, it makes broad and ultimately false philsophical claim from a position of complete mathematical ignorance.

Zero is the ultimate neutral entity.

No, it isn't. It's simply the identity element in the most common representation of the group of integers.

Oh, but you don't understand group theory, do you?

when taken together all of these mathematical entities also cancel out to Zero.

Not if you had an actual definition of "taken together," it wouldn't.

. NOTE: This is very different to the sort of mathematisation Husserl is talking about.

Absolutely. This is an incoherent stream of gibberish of which you approve.

 

[drkitten]

Can you think of anything which is more obviously neutral than Zero?

Yes. Something which is neither zero, nor non-zero.

For example, a non group structure.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

DrKitten,

I temporarily took you off ignore in order to read your post. I wish I hadn't bothered. There is no point in you making any further posts in this thread, because I'm neither going to read them nor respond to them.

Geoff.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

OK, you made another post.

I really would like to discuss it with you but your ATTITUDE makes it very, very difficult. I am willing to give you one more chance. If you can manage to interact with me without continually denigrating me, failing to listen to me, personally attacking me and generally treating me like something you scraped off your boots, then I will converse with you. If you cannot manage this, then you are going straight back on ignore.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

Yes. Something which is neither zero, nor non-zero.

For example, a non group structure.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_(math)

The neutral element is usually called the identity element for a multiplicative group and the null element or zero element for an additive group.

What's the problem?

This theory also associates Zero with neutrality. Also, as I have stated already, I am not talking about standard mathematics, I am talking about a modified version of mathematics which specifically alters the conception of Zero.

 

[cyborg]

I really would like to discuss it with you but your ATTITUDE makes it very, very difficult.

I would say yours is the problem.

The attitude you seem to have is that there is no objection that can exist to your cherished beliefs - nothing anyone proposes has any merit to it because we are all unable to comprehend the paradigm shift you've experienced.

In other words you're engaging in mysticism and that attitude is certainly problematic for anyone who is absolutely unwilling to engage in ritutuals that promise intellectual enlightenment.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Ah well, by all means, define zero to be neutral.

Zero is the ultimate neutral entity. It is the foundation of this system. From this zero, in perfectly symmetrical fashion, the whole of mathematics hangs off, and when taken together all of these mathematical entities also cancel out to Zero. As a result, the entire system is neutral. When the “logical grinder” has finished grinding, all that is left is Zero, literally leaving nothing to explain. Somewhere in the neutral realm of 0-math there is an 0-math entity which IS the neutral entity underlying our own reality. NOTE: This is very different to the sort of mathematisation Husserl is talking about. Firstly, the entity I am describing is not directly mappable onto the physical universe – although some future branch of QM or new branch of physics could conceivably describe it one day. Secondly I am openly declaring that this 0-math structure actually IS the neutral entity in question.

Sorry Geoff, but this means nothing to me.

~~ Paul

 

[UndercoverElephant]

I would say yours is the problem.

The attitude you seem to have is that there is no objection that can exist to your cherished beliefs - nothing anyone proposes has any merit to it because we are all unable to comprehend the paradigm shift you've experienced.

In other words you're engaging in mysticism and that attitude is certainly problematic for anyone who is absolutely unwilling to engage in ritutuals that promise intellectual enlightenment.

This post is just a flame, cyborg. It's not a response to my opening post. It amounts to "This is ◊◊◊◊ and you're stupid." You can think that if you like, but there's no point in me responding to it.

If you want me to change my mind about something then you must engage with my arguments.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

Ah well, by all means, define zero to be neutral.


Sorry Geoff, but this means nothing to me.

~~ Paul

Take it one sentence at a time. This is standard procedure when trying to understand a new philosophical position being described by somebody. What, exactly, don't you understand? I can further explain and clarify each and every sentence. There is nothing vague about it. Each sentence means something and each sentence is important.

 

[cyborg]

This post is just a flame, cyborg. It's not a response to my opening post. It amounts to "This is ◊◊◊◊ and you're stupid." You can think that if you like, but there's no point in me responding to it.

Well if there's any reason why I've come to that conclusion it's mainly your inability to actually propose anything that amounts to anything more than a mystical ritutal which will change ny perspectives forever if I just engage in it.

If you want me to change my mind about something then you must engage with my arguments.

Ditto. So stop wasting time and get down to it.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

Cyborg,

I am now convinced that you haven't even read the opening post in this thread. Please read it, try to understand it, and tell me which bits you are having trouble with. If you are still stuck on "but materialism is true" then don't bother responding at all. There's no point. People who still believe in materialism have no use for my neutral monism.

Geoff

 

[Beerina]

What's "neutral" anyway? Some magical stuff that's neither spiritual nor material?


I was reading this and, oooh, hey! Flashy, shiny, sparkly stuff!

 

[cyborg]

If you are still stuck on "but materialism is true" then don't bother responding at all.

You seem to be stuck on this, not me.

I want to know why what you're proposing is useful, not true. Fundamentally I don't see how we can ever be sure about what is 'True', but I can be damn sure what things are useful to me and materialism is a useful philosophy and it's useful in a way nothing else I've seen proposed is.

If it's not useful fundamentally whether or not it's true is irrelevant because it's always possible to construct elaborate systems that may be true.

It's no good saying I'm stuck on materialism and hence can't have any use for neutral monism. I'm saying that at best neutral monism is only useful to the neutral monists and I've not seen any reason to see otherwise.

If that's not the case what could you do that is useful to me irrespective of me believing in your perspectives? I could do any number of useful things for you from a materialist perspective.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

What's "neutral" anyway? Some magical stuff that's neither spiritual nor material?


I was reading this and, oooh, hey! Flashy, shiny, sparkly stuff!

I explained VERY CLEARLY what the "neutral stuff" is. No "magic" required.

Whenever I try to explain this to people like you lot the responses are either totally irrelevant abuse or totally irrelevant straw men - in other words instead of criticising the position I specified they criticise some other position, which is nothing to do with me, but which they think they can attack. What's the point in that?

Fortunately for me, I have plenty of opportunities to discuss these things with people who are actually interested in understanding the real problems of philosophy and any solutions that people are willing to offer to those problems. I hope you understand why uninformed criticism from people who have made no effort to understand the theory and don't even understand the problems I am attempting to solve just pass me by like water off a ducks back. One valid criticism from a person who has actually understood what I wrote is worth 1000 invallid criticisms from people who haven't got a clue what I am saying or why I am saying it.

I have both (a) explained what neutral means and (b) explained what the "neutral stuff" is. No magic was involved.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

You seem to be stuck on this, not me.

I want to know why what you're proposing is useful, not true.

In order to understand why it is useful, you have to understand (properly) the problems I am trying to find a solution to. There are LOTS of these problems, and I am trying to find a solution which works for ALL of them.

Fundamentally I don't see how we can ever be sure about what is 'True', but I can be damn sure what things are useful to me and materialism is a useful philosophy and it's useful in a way nothing else I've seen proposed is.

I am not trying to solve empirical problems. Science does that. I am trying to solve metaphysical and ontological problems. To understand my motives, you have to confront those metaphysical and ontological problems head-on instead of denying they exist. Materialism may be a useful hypothesis for doing science, but it is not helpful to keep defending it when the problems you are trying to solve are metaphysical and ontological.

If it's not useful fundamentally whether or not it's true is irrelevant because it's always possible to construct elaborate systems that may be true.

Very true. Which is why I said I'd need an entire book in order to convince anything other than a tiny number of people that this is indeed the best solution yet offered.

It's no good saying I'm stuck on materialism and hence can't have any use for neutral monism. I'm saying that at best neutral monism is only useful to the neutral monists and I've not seen any reason to see otherwise.

If that's not the case what could you do that is useful to me irrespective of me believing in your perspectives? I could do any number of useful things for you from a materialist perspective.

That depends on whether you think that finding solutions to the some of the most difficult questions ever asked by human beings is a worthwhile exercise. I do.

 

[Darat]

AS requested by Geoff I have brought these reponses to this thread:

If anyone wants an overview of the history and current state of neutral monism go here:

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/neutral-monism/

It is a historically diverse position, my own version is a new version of it, but it holds true to the basic tenets of the position.

...snip...

My own position is the result of long process of elimination of other positions and of inductive evidence from a wide variety of sources, most of them sciences. It also, unlike all of the other answers, attempts to explain why there is something instead of nothing. Please try to "unthink" your materialist assumptions when trying to understand my position.

...snip...

This is untrue - your position is a belief system that you did not arrive at by any type of reasoning or by examining evidence. You were stating the 1-1=0 as if it was something profound at least five years ago when you were claiming that the evidence that made it profound was Bell's Theorem:

i.e.:

24th August 2001

UndercoverElephant

I’ve read a lot of these sites you keep coming up with that supports your belief.

You’ve mentioned this “religious belief” either directly as here or obliquely in other threads. My quick check seems to be that all your posts are ‘flavoured’ with this belief (and I admit I’ve not gone through them all as there are a lot!). This just seems like fanaticism to me.

Whilst some of these sites have some valid points, point out some problems with some current theories etc. they are drowned in a sea of metaphysical hogwash. The quote you even used has contains a major fallacy, and it is major considering how much this ‘theory’ relies on it, and that is a misunderstanding of Bell’s theorem and what it may mean to current theories of the universe. I’m not a teacher of science so I’ll refer rather then, again, try to explain it and its consequences please read it and then look at the part you put in bold:

To those of us who take objective reality as an axiomatic foundation for our worldview, it is, quite frankly, a challenge. We have to give up either objective reality, locality, or both. Can we give up locality alone and thereby meet the challenge? The answer is yes.

Can’t you see the error that’s been made? They are purposefully ignoring the other option from Bell’s Theorem as it wouldn’t support this theory. (And giving up locality doesn’t have to result in this ‘conscious universe you mention in other threads).

And is a revolution happening, a paradigm shift as you call it? For you to be using those words I suppose you’ve read Kuhn?

Kuhn theorised that the starting point of the paradigm shift is not just because there are areas that the current, ‘accepted’ theory can’t explain or is in contradiction with empirical science (crisis point) but that the ‘new’ theory must explain these findings, have no known gaps (at the time of proposal) and more accurately describes the facts. (And can be tested by science today.)

(As an example of this I’d suggest you look at the history of superstrings. This theory originally attracted a lot of interest, was going to revolutionise the world it would be a “paradigm shift”. Why didn’t this happen? Because whilst the new theory could explain some thing the old couldn’t it still had gaps that were obvious at the time it was first proposed. I’m not saying that any of the superstring theories are wrong or right I’m just saying how they didn’t trigger a “paradigm shift”.)

If you read some of the sites you keep referring to you can see how many of the ‘proponents’ you are using as supporters of this ‘paradigm shift’ are well aware of the problems and gaps this ‘new’ theory has.

At the moment it is obviously not a fully formed theory so let’s keep it in perspective please and understand its interesting etc. but we don’t need to keep discussing it.


And one last point please consider the following

UndercoverElephant
am quite definately an ex-materialist, and consider that the moment I truly understood the implications of this to be the most significant, and life-changing experience of my life so far.

My cousin (paraphrasing a conversation I had with her)
I was an atheist, well perhaps an agnostic, but I know the moment I let Jesus into my heart that this was the most significant moment of my life, my life was changed for ever.

You are describing a ‘religious’ experience not a reaction to scientific theory.

When you were unable to support your claims via Bell's Theorem you moved to other so called proofs i.e:

17th July 2002

What do you think Zero is?

Ever heard of Symmetry mathematics?

http://macrocosmicsymmetry.com/st_math2.htm

ARRRRHHHHH!!!!!!


I don't know about symmetry mathematics but aren't we right back at the beginning?

Please, please, please tell me UCE that you are not going to start repeating everything you started posting almost a year ago that was completely demolished?

(You re-registered here as Juggler after leaving as "UndercoverElelphant" shortly after revealing that a mysterious document had appeared on your computer desktop that revealed secretes of the universe but you couldn't paste any of it here because of copyright reasons. That link above is defunct but the page is still available via the wonderful WayBack Machine: http://web.archive.org/web/20020627031054/http://macrocosmicsymmetry.com/st_math2.htm )

 

[cyborg]

In order to understand why it is useful, you have to understand (properly) the problems I am trying to find a solution to. There are LOTS of these problems, and I am trying to find a solution which works for ALL of them.

And have you? What results have you gotten? Or would that be too emperical for your tastes?

I am not trying to solve empirical problems. Science does that. I am trying to solve metaphysical and ontological problems.

Then in other words your perspective has no practical use at all.

To understand my motives, you have to confront those metaphysical and ontological problems head-on instead of denying they exist.

Again, just because YOU'RE convinced they exist doesn't mean they do. Surely you must realise just how poor your opening attempts were at showing these so-called fundamental problems was? They were completely battered by people who were more than capable of thinking far more abstractly about the relationship between mathematical and mental models of reality than Hurssel apprantly was - who was stuck on purely geometric concepts and unable to grasp how other models could capture other qualia.

It's not denial, you've just failed to state your case.

Materialism may be a useful hypothesis for doing science, but it is not helpful to keep defending it when the problems you are trying to solve are metaphysical and ontological.

If solutions exist at all.

Very true. Which is why I said I'd need an entire book in order to convince anything other than a tiny number of people that this is indeed the best solution yet offered.

Well you keep plugging away then.

That depends on whether you think that finding solutions to the some of the most difficult questions ever asked by human beings is a worthwhile exercise. I do.

Well here's a start.

What are these difficult questions? I don't recall them being stated before but I could have missed it.

And I don't want to see questions biased towards monism - they should be neutral and up for grabs by competing philosophies.