for the record, I started writing this before post 92 was up...
I''l be darned. You've become a "neutral monist" just like Geoff!
As a couple of us have noticed that's just another attempted-but-failed evasion of dualism.
I dunno...perhaps it is the certainty of the "neutral monism" that makes it so desparately dualist. There may be other neutral monism defenses that do not scream out "I am really a dualist"... I am willing to be persuaded that it is my misunderstanding, but so far it seems to me that Geoff walks and quacks like a dualist.
Guys, it's easy. Wanna be a materialist? Just state for the record that's your choice and defend that position -- which includes 'it is a 100% certainty that free-will and/or god does not exist'. Or, explain the logical error in my statement.
Conversely, I'd be interested to hear how, in the absense of a choice of monism, anyone concludes that mind/body dualism is not their fallback position. Good luck.
Sorry, hammy...you know I luv ya, but this seems shifting the burden of proof. Dualism is internally inconsistent. Self-contradictory. Two non-interacting realms, interacting? (never mind, you know already.) So... we look. It does appear logically possible for the whole shooting works to be material. Of course, this means that the stuff the dualists call "mental" has to be accounted for by material stuff. I am convinced that it is. At least as well as the dualists account for it. Without that pesky "impossible" bit. On the other hand, it does appear logically possible that we can start with "thought exists" and account for the whole nine yards. Including the stuff that dualists called "material".
Aye (as that other Hammy used to say), there's the rub. Each monism works. Dualism is internally incoherent. Dualism is impossible; the fallback position only of those who can segregate incompatible thoughts from one another. Under one set of assumptions, Idealism is a perfectly good explanation (I know, many here would disagree. Remember, though, I am right.). Under another set of assumptions, Materialism is also perfectly good. It really does explain (again, given one set of assumptions) the stuff that dualists think material stuff cannot explain, and which requires a separate "stuff".
But that's the problem. (I have skipped over proofs. hammy has heard them, I have, most people following the thread have heard them.) True materialism explains it all (some find it impossible, or ludicrous, or silly, or whatever, but given materialism's a priori assumptions, it does), and true idealism does as well (again, given idealism's a priori assumptions). Indeed, it is only by assuming one set of a prioris that we can be comfortable with either materialism or idealism.
That bears repeating. But I won't. I will simply note that one cannot, by any means known, prove that either materialism or idealism is the true underlying reality. It is quite impossible. The materialist-assumption world looks like...the world. So does the idealist-assumption world.
Hammy says we need to choose one monism and defend it. I cannot. I cannot see how anyone can. A and B are both possible, and are experienced identically. C also would be experienced like that, except that it is logically impossible. There is no pragmatic reason to choose between A and B, but hammy says that if we do not choose between A and B, we default to C.
I don't think so.
I think it entirely reasonable to recognise that there is not reasonable distinction between A and B, but that "A or B" is possible, whereas C is not. If "A or B" is possible, and both A and B are equally likely given the evidence, how does one choose? Let alone choose it as "a position you are willing to defend". How does one claim "100 % certainty" when 2 positions have exactly the same amount of evidence? I cannot do that. When one of the two positions amasses some new evidence that the other cannot explain...wake me.
