Very interesting video. However, regarding the point about one's "shadow clone" upon being teleported, I can chalk it up to my lack of understanding, but I don't see how one can't simply admit, "Yes, you do have a copy, but you are still you." After all, think of a save file in a video game (or even separate video game cartridges): by and large, they have the same code, same game, etc., but we still say, "This is my copy of Super Mario Bros., and that is yours." Because we distinguish between discrete copies, with mine being "here," and yours being "there." Similarly, my clone may indeed be "me," in a sense, but it's still separate, as it has its own discrete nervous system that makes it not me. Also, you acknowledge this, but I feel it needs more emphasis: even a mind-first argument has problems (also, "mind-first," as in idealism or panpsychism, where mind is "bottom-up"; I do not include cosmopsychism, a "top-down," view in that). For instance, it doesn't, at least ostensibly, appear to cohere most simply with empirical data on consciousness. For instance, we have people go under during operations, with no conscious experience being recalled afterwards (I myself have experienced just that). Many people who nearly die have no NDEs. Finally, as far as we know, a sort of "reincarnation" does not seem likely, _prima facie,_ and so we have more reason to believe that we didn't really exist before being born, before our brains were formed. This segues to the next point. Even if reality is "mind-first," that doesn't necessarily even _suggest_ that we, as we think of ourselves now, persist after death. Even if we are not a brain, or the consequence of a brain, we _are_ correlated with a brain. And just as we didn't exist before, without the correlated brain, it seems a mind-first reality does not prevent us from being dissolved upon brain death. What it _could_ be, I'd wager, is a sort of "top-down" conscious experience, with consciousness coming from above, as in cosmopsychism, but with our brains being mere radios. While there may still be radio waves in the air even after my radio is destroyed... that doesn't mean I can hear it. So too with the brain: consciousness may still exist out in "space," but with my brain radio destroyed, why ought I believe that I can pick up those frequencies of consciousness?
Hey Joshua, great video ! Thank you for that ! Here are some thoughts : 33:45 _"What I'm going to be exposing here is that if we actually think of us as really existing not just existing according to a convention but actually really existing then we're going to have a puzzle"_ Here, you seem to be admitting that your entire critique of the different "atomist" views is predicated on a realist view of the self. So I was wondering, would anti-realism about the self solve these puzzles ? *The duplicate challenge :* You offer the _"duplicate"_ challenge (22:47), how would anti-realism solve that ? In anti-realism about the self, what you are according to me needs not be the same thing as what you are according to you... In that case what you are would not simply be an arrangement of atoms, you would be an arrangement of atoms that is accessed by a specific mind (or that is IN a specific mind), the self would be mind dependent (which I would hope is not a controversial position... If the self is a mind, how could a mind be mind independent ?) This solves the _"duplicate"_ challenge, since the term "self" would then be an indexical term, such as the personal pronoun "I". Each duplicate (and each individual in general) would have a first person self, which would be different from whatever other individuals think about them... From whomever with other individuals identify them. *The transporter experiment :* At 28:38 you ask : _"what happens to you ?",_ if the self is indexical, then the arrangement of atoms that remains in the ship will develop its own sense of self, and the one that is created by the transporter will also develop its own sense of self. 29:00 _"the problem here is that it seems like merely third person external facts about atoms and their positions and their functions aren't going to include the first person information about your own sense of self where you actually sense yourself to be"_ Let's think about someone like Berkeley for example. For Berkeley, if x exists, then x is a mental object (idealism). If we both are in a room, and if you point to the chair in the room, you have a concept of the chair in your mind, and I have a concept of the chair in my mind, there is no "mind independent" chair that exists in reality. Whatever x is, we can only talk about the subjective or intersubjective x, there is no objective x. Whatever x is, there is only various _"first person sense"_ of what x is. Ok, apply that to your _"transporter experiment"_ (or your _"duplicate"_ challenge for that matter), when we say that the self is an arrangement of atoms, that arrangement of atoms is a _"first person"_ concept situated in your brain. The _"first person sense of self"_ is also a bunch of arranged atoms in your brain (see connectionism). I get this weird feeling hearing certain philosophers that atoms do not belong to the category of things that can be _"first person"._ But they never explain why. For the type of idealist described above, EVERYTHING is _"first person"..._ In general, if one is an anti-realist about atoms (anti-realist about science in general), then all atoms, including those in my brain, are not mind independent objects... So some atoms can very well account for my _"first person experience of self",_ since they already are mind dependent objects (a subject in that case), and they are in my mind... And my mind, my "self", would also be a mind dependent subject, an indexical. 29:42 _"One kind of response is to appeal not just to the positions of the atoms but to appeal to some psychological facts about you but then this is going to lead to a different view which is that your identity is not just grounded in your atoms these mindless atoms but that's somehow your identity is grounded in maybe some kind of mind or Consciousness so that would be a way of solving the problem but by Leading us to a different View"_ You see ? Why do you say it's a different view ? Why couldn't anti-real mindless atoms give rise to an anti-real consciousness ? For the anti-realist about atoms, _"mindless atoms"_ are nothing more than a concept in one's mind, a mind dependent subject... Why couldn't that mind dependent subject _"ground"_ consciousness ? Why couldn't an anti-real mind be emergent from anti-real mindless atoms ? (see connectionism). *The demarcation problem :* Same here, solved by anti-realism about the self. *The brain minus puzzle :* The _"brain minus puzzle"_ seems to be nothing more than a sorites argument ? Kind of stepped away from the functionalist view or the _"arrangement"_ view. 48:33 _"And by this I mean two things first a first person self is something that has a first person perspective a point of view what it's like to be you having thoughts and feelings you can experience uh the world from from your perspective and that this first person perspective of your own self and self-awareness is not reducible to purely third-person perspectiveless items like Mindless atoms"_ Here we see it again, the presupposition that atoms are _"third person perspectiveless items"._ But if when I talk about atoms, I refer to nothing more than the concept of atom that I have in my mind, the same concept of atom that I use in my naturalistic explanation of the world, then when I talk about atoms, I don't refer to anything _"third person"..._ The concept of atom is in my mind, to atoms are IN MY MIND, so it is first person (it's not _"third person"),_ and neither do I talk bout something that is necessarily _"perspectiveless"..._ Because, in particular, if these atoms give rise to a conscious mind, then those atoms will indeed have a perspective. And this is not even controversial I think. For example, I can build an autonomous car, and I will describe this autonomous car as having a certain _"perspective"_ on the world, the autonomous car doesn't have access to all the information in the world (it is not omniscient), the autonomous car has a limited access to the world, limited by the range and scope of its sensors, and the computation that it makes from the data gathered by its sensors, therefore the autonomous car has a _"perspective"_ on the world. 49:14 _"The self is itself a an irreducible unit of reality"_ Reality refers to what is mind independent does it not ? How can the self be in reality then ? How can the self be mind independent ? Finally, under your face in the video, one can find your name, your credentials, and the mention : _"author of who are you really"_ And this sums up the entire thing, and the solution to all the problems proposed in the video : You don't need to be _"really"._ You can simply be "anti-really".
A much needed argument and very well presented. Your beginning description of material atoms as mindless is essential to understanding how the physical differs from the mental. That scientists must rely on mental concepts when describing mindless physical phenomena is an overlooked and underappreciated contradiction, for by peeling away the mental parts from the mindless physical parts, all experience and conceptual understanding of the physical vanishes. Only by describing the physical in terms of what it isn't does the term "physical" manage to survive at all.
neat vid. a few years back i had a discussion with a materialist (i'm a substance dualist interactionist) about elon musks experiments into neurolink. we were both very positive at the potential of this technology. i thought that experiments of directly connecting brains would be cool. to my surprise he was really scared about this prospect. it puzzled me for awhile. but then i realized that being a substance dualist i wasn't scared about losing self identity. but for him directly connecting 2 brains together neurologically makes it really hard to answer the question, how many minds are there? seems to me substance dualists can have more confidence in answering this question. for the dualist it might be mysterious how the mind interacts with the brain but for the materialist there's a mystery as to why can't ANY interaction be a sufficient condition for mystery too. why is the interaction between brain to tongue, to sound, to the ear of the interlocutor's brain not a problem. but connecting the 2 brains together directly all of a sudden becomes a problem?
Interesting video but the answer is crystal clear if you ask me; theory 5! We are an arrangement of atoms in the brain in the form of a highly complex set of lots of different interacting molecules, from this our conciousness emerges. The emergent concept can be understood by a simple example, a single molecule of water isn't wet, but if you put a lot of them together the property of 'wetness' emerges. This wetness property will manifest with 10 billion water molecules but also with 8 or 5 billion. Now if you respresent the immense network of interacting molecules in our brain by a highly complex set of mathematical formulas with lots of different parameters. These parameters are all the inputs the brain takes in from it's environment and the outcome of the formula(s) is the action you do or the thought you have, the set of all these formulas is you. Now if the arrangement of molecules in your brain changes, one or more of these formulas might be altered as well, resulting in different thoughts or actions. Some formulas might dissapear altogether but you will always be the sum of the formulas present at any moment. I don't see how your objection in the video is an objection at all: yes, if you would be able to duplicate the highly complex arrangement in a brain you could in theory duplicate your personality but that would be impossible to do, if you could do it you might have exact copies for a brief moment only, since the brains will have different inputs (parameters) right away and very soon have a slighly different set of formulas and therefore be a different person already, over time these formulas will differ more and more.
The problem w/ what you're describing is a simple matter of ontology. The emergence of wetness from a collection of individual water molecules is a difference in *degree* but not in kind. Fundamentally, the underlying substrate is still physical and therefore something one can articulate in terms of pure quantities (in other words some combination of momentum, charge, spin, amplitude, etc.) - but there is precisely *nothing* quantitative about the fundamentally qualitative experience of, say, the smell of coffee or the elation one feels when listening to your favorite piece of music. You can't tie a number (or any number of numbers) to such a thing and it's, frankly, pointless to even try. And so when you appeal to pure complexity to try and, at least in principle, lay out a plausible path for how we might eventually explain how it is the brain purportedly produces consciousness, you're not justifying the underlying assumptions that you have to grant in order for this to be actually feasible. When you actually engage with those assumptions, the intractable problems become readily apparent. To say that a physical substrate like the brain could produce its polar opposite in qualitative experience is no different than saying that you could rub two sticks together and get the feeling of happiness from it. It really is that ludicrous.
@@ryanashfyre464 I appreciate your feedback. I think the mind might appear to be in a different category, or as you describe it a difference in degree or kind, but this is not the case if you ask me. Consider the absolute basics from which the brain much have evolved, a simple signalling system, for example contact with nearby fire/smoke literally triggers a set of some chemical reactions, the compound created from this causes some kind of unpleasantness in your system, it's acidic or smelly or whatever. This is a purely chemical signal, now evolution only selects for this if it causes a beneficial function like a secondary cascade of reactions which give you a signal to move away. We know from co-evolution that two seperately evolved processes can merge to create a new functionality which, if beneficial to the organism, can continue to survive as a new function. Now try to picture thousands of these kind of processes evolving over hundreds of thousands of years, occuring simultaneously, signal merging is likely selected for since this would have some obvious benefits. I think the mind is simply the end result of this enterprise but it has become so complicated that we can't easily deduce it's origins anymore, since evolution merges, recombines, removes redundant parts, etc. So it's just a highly advanced signalling system and basically still a difference in degree but we perceive it as a difference in kind. I like to consider the visual part of your concious experience, if you completely clear your mind of any thoughts and look around you you are basically no more then a natural video camera, something we can recreate ourselves from purely material components in the form of an actual video camera. I think all the above described is the only plausible mechanism to get to where we are, building complexity from the ground up by incremental improvements over a timescale so large that its hard to fathom. This also seems to be what the science points towards.
@@Myrmion909 >] "I like to consider the visual part of your concious experience, if you completely clear your mind of any thoughts and look around you you are basically no more then a natural video camera, something we can recreate ourselves from purely material components in the form of an actual video camera." Since you went out of your way to bring up visual experience, this seems an opportune moment to bring up what's colloquially known as the "visual binding problem" - in other words how disparate information in the brain could, even from first princples, combine into the coherent experience of say, a red square or a blue circle. Simply put, we've mapped a comprehensive enough analysis of the brain to affirmatively conclude that there's no mysterious section of the brain left that could be doing this, and so further appeals to complexity would appear to be wholly unjustified. There's an explanatory gap here that simply cannot be filled by looking at the brain alone. >] "I think all the above described is the only plausible mechanism to get to where we are, building complexity from the ground up by incremental improvements over a timescale so large that its hard to fathom. This also seems to be what the science points towards." I would propose precisely the opposite and would submit for your consideration the empirically verified phenomenon of DID (dissociate identity disorder, otherwise known as multiple personalities) to show that this is clearly the case. This is, perhaps, the single most confounding mystery in all of neuroscience - how it is that what was clearly one unified mind can dissociate itself to allow apparently separate personalities to operate entirely on their own. And as if that weren't enough, these personalities have even been reported to be able to observe one another in a shared dreamscape w/ the host personality able to relay the individual perspective of each of these personalities as if it were its own. This is anything but a mind being built from the ground up. Precisely the opposite in fact. A preexisting mind can, in ways that precisely no one can explain, separate to become two or more; the one becoming many. From this alone we can make the argument, verified through empirical observation, that minds are a top-down phenomenon, not bottom-up through appeals to sheer complexity that simply leave too much question begging and an explanatory gap that appears impossible to account for.
Excellent stuff as always! Big fan! Would you be so kind as to make a part 2 where you continue the video about the questions that can be raised against the identity first-position?
I get the impression that the question "what am I?" has not received nearly the same amount of attention as "is the mental physical?" and "what makes A and B the same person over time?". I'm often left wondering what, say non-reductive physicalists or psychological criterion of identity theorists think about the first question. Shouldn't they have an answer? Substance dualists, idealists, and constitutionalists have an answer!
Great video! Bernardo Kastrup's Analytic Idealism dovetails with this perfectly. Your brain is not the generator of consciousness, it's the image of consciousness-a representation from a third-person perspective. This preserves the correlation, but flips the causal arrow around. As Josh demonstrated, that instantly resolves a litany of seemingly unsolvable problems presented by the materialist (and probably dualist) perspective.
P1 - If what I am is real (objective, stance independent), then what I am according to you is the same thing as what I am according to me. P2 - There is a difference between what I am according to you, and what I am according to me (qualia). C1 - Therefore, I am not real (objective, stance independent). From there two arguments can follow : P3 - I am reducible to atoms (physicalism). C2 - Therefore atoms are not real (objective, stance independent) Or : P3' - Atoms are real (objective, stance independent) C2' - Therefore I am not reducible to atoms (physicalism is false) One philosopher's modus ponens is another's modus ponens. It seems that either realism about atoms is false (C2), or that physicalism is false (C2'). The other possibility is that the self doesn't exist I guess...
Defense of P2 : If there were no difference between what I am according to you, and what I am according to me, then why do doctors make diagnostics based on first person accounts of their patients ?
P1 and P2: The first two premises argue that if the nature of 'what I am' is objective, then there should be no difference between your perception of 'me' and my own perception. The difference in perception is attributed to qualia. If there is indeed a difference, then 'what I am' is not stance-independent. This makes sense to a degree, but one could argue that our understanding or perception of an objective reality can still be subjective. For instance, two people can look at the same mountain, and one sees a challenge to conquer while another sees a place of peace and reflection. The mountain, in its objective state, remains unchanged. The differences lie in the subjective interpretations. P3 and C2: If the self is reducible to atoms (a physicalist stance), and if the self is not real in the objective sense, then atoms (being the basis of the self) cannot be real in an objective sense either. This is a leap in logic. It's like saying if a story isn't true, then the words that make up the story aren't real. The medium (atoms, words) can remain objective and real even if the specific configuration or interpretation (self, story) is subjective. P3' and C2': The converse suggests that if atoms are objectively real, then the self can't be just atoms, implying physicalism is false. This follows logically from the previous statements, but the same critique about conflating the medium with interpretation applies.
@@7200darkcharm *-"This is a leap in logic. It's like saying if a story isn't true, then the words that make up the story aren't real. The medium (atoms, words) can remain objective and real even if the specific configuration or interpretation (self, story) is subjective."* Mmm... If X is objective (real), then if you describe X by attributing it the property P, and if I describe X by attributing it the property nonP, then one of us is wrong. Yes ? I would say that is another definition of what "objective" means. If you agree with that, that means that when I describe myself, I attribute to myself my qualia. And when you describe me, you will not attribute qualia to me, since you don't have access to them. Therefore whatever is the substrate of the self, it seems that it cannot be something objective, because a multiplicity or unicity of objective things cannot give rise to a subjective totality. (this is a missing premise in my argument I think, and you might reject that "law of composition". Maybe this is what you mean when you talk about *"medium"* ?)
P3 can only follow if one grants the metaphysical assumptions of Materialism, which I certainly do not. In fact there is precisely no one, past or present, that can even give a proper definition for what it even means to be "physical" that doesn't reduce itself to absurdity or, frankly, being just an attitude in how one labels their observations. Furthermore, even *if* one were to grant that there is something that we call a "physical world" that exists a mind-independent reality, regardless as to whether we're there to observe it or not, your idea of the atom seems to betray a misunderstanding of the actual science going on here. There's no such thing as an atom, just like there's actually no such thing as a particle or subatomic particle. What we've built is a convenient *narrative* that allows us to predict the behavior of natue in such a way that the world acts *as if* atoms and particles actually existed, which is not the same thing as saying that they actually do.
1st option seems most plausible to me. just a centerless seethe of patterns, perhaps always in a novel configuration. whatever happens is only ever self-referential, there's no 'other', there's no fact of the matter about 'true meanings' of linguistic units, identity, self, substance... just patterns, maybe ad infinitum.
great lecture. I always enjoy your videos. I couldn't really follow your discussion of the demarcation problem though. not sure what you mean by "overlapping." overlapping what? each other? where?
I’m wondering how the persistence principle (as you are using it in this video) and the Brain Minus argument avoid the false continuum fallacy. I would think that a person who believes that our identity is the same as the material we are composed of might object to a simple view composition as you present it. A person could posit that the removal of an atom or group of atoms doesn’t change intrinsic properties of Being B as you do but only to a point. At some point a certain number of atoms being removed does change a being intrinsically. It seems that a hidden assumption might be present. Something like this “Because the line at which the removal of atoms changes a being’s intrinsic properties is hard to determine we can say that atomic grounding is invalidated”. Am I missing something?
In this speculative scenario, let's consider Leibniz's Monad (first emanation of God), from the philosophical work "The Monadology", as an abstract representation of the zero-dimensional space that binds quarks together with the Strong Nuclear Force: 1) Indivisibility and Unity: Monads, as indivisible entities, mirror the nature of quarks, which are deemed elementary and indivisible particles in our theoretical context. Just as monads possess unity and indivisibility, quarks are unified in their interactions through the Strong Nuclear Force. 2) Interconnectedness: In the Monadology, monads are interconnected in a vast network. In a parallel manner, the interconnectedness of quarks through the strong force could be metaphorically represented by the interplay of monads, forming a web that holds particles together. 3) Inherent Properties: Just as monads possess inherent perceptions and appetitions, quarks could be thought of as having intrinsic properties like color charge, reflecting the inherent qualities of monads and influencing their interactions. 4) Harmony: The concept of monads contributing to universal harmony resonates with the idea that the Strong Nuclear Force maintains harmony within atomic nuclei by counteracting the electromagnetic repulsion between protons, allowing for the stability of matter. 5) Pre-established Harmony: Monads' pre-established harmony aligns with the idea that the strong force was pre-designed to ensure stable interactions among quarks, orchestrating their behavior in a way that parallels the harmony envisaged by Leibniz. 6) Non-Mechanical Interaction: Monads interact non-mechanically, mirroring the non-mechanical interactions of quarks through gluon exchange. This connection might be seen as a metaphorical reflection of the intricacies of quark-gluon dynamics. 7) Holism: The holistic perspective of monads could symbolize how quarks, like the monads' interconnections, contribute holistically to the structure and behavior of particles through the strong force interactions. em·a·na·tion noun an abstract but perceptible thing that issues or originates from a source.
Metaphysics Context The monad, the word and the idea, belongs to the Western philosophical tradition and has been used by various authors. Leibniz, who was exceptionally well-read, could not have ignored this, but he did not use it himself until mid-1696 when he was sending for print his New System. Apparently he found with it a convenient way to expound his own philosophy as it was elaborated in this period. What he proposed can be seen as a modification of occasionalism developed by latter-day Cartesians. Leibniz surmised that there are indefinitely many substances individually 'programmed' to act in a predetermined way, each substance being coordinated with all the others. This is the pre-established harmony which solved the mind-body problem, but at the cost of declaring any interaction between substances a mere appearance. Summary The rhetorical strategy adopted by Leibniz in The Monadology is fairly obvious as the text begins with a description of monads (proceeding from simple to complicated instances), then it turns to their principle or creator and finishes by using both to explain the world. (I) As far as Leibniz allows just one type of element in the building of the universe his system is monistic. The unique element has been 'given the general name monad or entelechy' and described as 'a simple substance' (§§1, 19). When Leibniz says that monads are 'simple,' he means that "which is one, has no parts and is therefore indivisible". Relying on the Greek etymology of the word entelechie (§18), Leibniz posits quantitative differences in perfection between monads which leads to a hierarchical ordering. The basic order is three-tiered: (1) entelechies or created monads (§48), (2) souls or entelechies with perception and memory (§19), and (3) spirits or rational souls (§82). Whatever is said about the lower ones (entelechies) is valid for the higher (souls and spirits) but not vice versa. As none of them is without a body (§72), there is a corresponding hierarchy of (1) living beings and animals (2), the latter being either non-reasonable or reasonable. The degree of perfection in each case corresponds to cognitive abilities and only spirits or reasonable animals are able to grasp the ideas of both the world and its creator. Some monads have power over others because they can perceive with greater clarity, but primarily, one monad is said to dominate another if it contains the reasons for the actions of other(s). Leibniz believed that any body, such as the body of an animal or man, has one dominant monad which controls the others within it. This dominant monad is often referred to as the soul. (II) God is also said to be a simple substance (§47) but it is the only one necessary (§§38-9) and without a body attached (§72). Monads perceive others "with varying degrees of clarity, except for God, who perceives all monads with utter clarity". God could take any and all perspectives, knowing of both potentiality and actuality. As well as that God in all his power would know the universe from each of the infinite perspectives at the same time, and so his perspectives-his thoughts-"simply are monads". Creation is a permanent state, thus "[monads] are generated, so to speak, by continual fulgurations of the Divinity" (§47). Any perfection comes from being created while imperfection is a limitation of nature (§42). The monads are unaffected by each other, but each have a unique way of expressing themselves in the universe, in accordance with God's infinite will. (III) Composite substances or matter are "actually sub-divided without end" and have the properties of their infinitesimal parts (§65). A notorious passage (§67) explains that "each portion of matter can be conceived as like a garden full of plants, or like a pond full of fish. But each branch of a plant, each organ of an animal, each drop of its bodily fluids is also a similar garden or a similar pond". There are no interactions between different monads nor between entelechies and their bodies but everything is regulated by the pre-established harmony (§§78-9). Much like how one clock may be in synchronicity with another, but the first clock is not caused by the second (or vice versa), rather they are only keeping the same time because the last person to wind them set them to the same time. So it is with monads; they may seem to cause each other, but rather they are, in a sense, "wound" by God's pre-established harmony, and thus appear to be in synchronicity. Leibniz concludes that "if we could understand the order of the universe well enough, we would find that it surpasses all the wishes of the wisest people, and that it is impossible to make it better than it is-not merely in respect of the whole in general, but also in respect of ourselves in particular" (§90). In his day, atoms were proposed to be the smallest division of matter. Within Leibniz's theory, however, substances are not technically real, so monads are not the smallest part of matter, rather they are the only things which are, in fact, real. To Leibniz, space and time were an illusion, and likewise substance itself. The only things that could be called real were utterly simple beings of psychic activity "endowed with perception and appetite." The other objects, which we call matter, are merely phenomena of these simple perceivers. "Leibniz says, 'I don't really eliminate body, but reduce [revoco] it to what it is. For I show that corporeal mass [massa], which is thought to have something over and above simple substances, is not a substance, but a phenomenon resulting from simple substances, which alone have unity and absolute reality.' (G II 275/AG 181)" Leibniz's philosophy is sometimes called "'panpsychic idealism' because these substances are psychic rather than material". That is to say, they are mind-like substances, not possessing spatial reality. "In other words, in the Leibnizian monadology, simple substances are mind-like entities that do not, strictly speaking, exist in space but that represent the universe from a unique perspective." It is the harmony between the perceptions of the monads which creates what we call substances, but that does not mean the substances are real in and of themselves. (IV) Leibniz uses his theory of Monads to support his argument that we live in the best of all possible worlds. He uses his basis of perception but not interaction among monads to explain that all monads must draw their essence from one ultimate monad. He then claims that this ultimate monad would be God because a monad is a “simple substance” and God is simplest of all substances, He cannot be broken down any further. This means that all monads perceive “with varying degrees of perception, except for God, who perceives all monads with utter clarity”. This superior perception of God then would apply in much the same way that he says a dominant monad controls our soul, all other monads associated with it would, essentially, shade themselves towards Him. With all monads being created by the ultimate monad and shading themselves in the image of this ultimate monad, Leibniz argues that it would be impossible to conceive of a more perfect world because all things in the world are created by and imitating the best possible monad.
[2D is not the center of the universe, 0D is the center of the mirror universe]: The mirror universe theory is based on the concept of parity violation, which was discovered in the 1950s. Parity violation refers to the observation that certain processes in particle physics don't behave the same way when their coordinates are reversed. This discovery led to the idea that there might be a mirror image of our universe where particles and their properties are flipped. In this mirror universe, the fundamental particles that make up matter, such as electrons, protons, and neutrinos, would have their charges reversed. For example, in our universe, electrons have a negative charge, but in the mirror universe, they might have a positive charge. Furthermore, another aspect of the mirror universe theory involves chirality, which refers to the property of particles behaving differently from their mirror images. In our universe, particles have a certain handedness or chirality, but in the mirror universe, this chirality could be reversed. Leibniz or Newton: Quantum mechanics is more compatible with Leibniz's relational view of the universe than Newton's absolute view of the universe. In Newton's absolute view, space and time are absolute and independent entities that exist on their own, independent of the objects and events that take place within them. This view implies that there is a privileged observer who can observe the universe from a neutral and objective perspective. On the other hand, Leibniz's relational view holds that space and time are not absolute, but are instead relational concepts that are defined by the relationships between objects and events in the universe. This view implies that there is no privileged observer and that observations are always made from a particular point of view. Quantum mechanics is more compatible with the relational view because it emphasizes the role of observers and the context of measurement in determining the properties of particles. In quantum mechanics, the properties of particles are not absolute, but are instead defined by their relationships with other particles and the measuring apparatus. This means that observations are always made from a particular point of view and that there is no neutral and objective perspective. Overall, quantum mechanics suggests that the universe is fundamentally relational rather than absolute, and is therefore more compatible with Leibniz's relational view than Newton's absolute view. What are the two kinds of truth according to Leibniz? There are two kinds of truths, those of reasoning and those of fact. Truths of fact are contingent and their opposite is possible. Truths of reasoning are necessary and their opposite is impossible. What is the difference between Newton and Leibniz calculus? Newton's calculus is about functions. Leibniz's calculus is about relations defined by constraints. In Newton's calculus, there is (what would now be called) a limit built into every operation. In Leibniz's calculus, the limit is a separate operation. What are the arguments against Leibniz? Critics of Leibniz argue that the world contains an amount of suffering too great to permit belief in philosophical optimism. The claim that we live in the best of all possible worlds drew scorn most notably from Voltaire, who lampooned it in his comic novella Candide.
The human ego dilemma: when we look out at the world, there appears a collection of objects with continuous identities across time, which lends us to form expectations about what will happen in the following moment(s), but these expectations often fail because when we look closer at reality we find that it's actually in a constant state of flux and identity is only a concept that ignores this impermanent nature.
False dichotomy. Water is fluid in regular conditions, but even in that fluidity, it has a structure that prevents it from just being everywhere all at once.
So interesting! Great lecture as always. I thank you and all your atoms for doing what you do.
Comment for traction.
Same
Very interesting video.
However, regarding the point about one's "shadow clone" upon being teleported, I can chalk it up to my lack of understanding, but I don't see how one can't simply admit, "Yes, you do have a copy, but you are still you." After all, think of a save file in a video game (or even separate video game cartridges): by and large, they have the same code, same game, etc., but we still say, "This is my copy of Super Mario Bros., and that is yours." Because we distinguish between discrete copies, with mine being "here," and yours being "there." Similarly, my clone may indeed be "me," in a sense, but it's still separate, as it has its own discrete nervous system that makes it not me.
Also, you acknowledge this, but I feel it needs more emphasis: even a mind-first argument has problems (also, "mind-first," as in idealism or panpsychism, where mind is "bottom-up"; I do not include cosmopsychism, a "top-down," view in that). For instance, it doesn't, at least ostensibly, appear to cohere most simply with empirical data on consciousness. For instance, we have people go under during operations, with no conscious experience being recalled afterwards (I myself have experienced just that). Many people who nearly die have no NDEs. Finally, as far as we know, a sort of "reincarnation" does not seem likely, _prima facie,_ and so we have more reason to believe that we didn't really exist before being born, before our brains were formed. This segues to the next point.
Even if reality is "mind-first," that doesn't necessarily even _suggest_ that we, as we think of ourselves now, persist after death. Even if we are not a brain, or the consequence of a brain, we _are_ correlated with a brain. And just as we didn't exist before, without the correlated brain, it seems a mind-first reality does not prevent us from being dissolved upon brain death.
What it _could_ be, I'd wager, is a sort of "top-down" conscious experience, with consciousness coming from above, as in cosmopsychism, but with our brains being mere radios. While there may still be radio waves in the air even after my radio is destroyed... that doesn't mean I can hear it. So too with the brain: consciousness may still exist out in "space," but with my brain radio destroyed, why ought I believe that I can pick up those frequencies of consciousness?
I am so glad you are posting on this channel more. I love your way of analyzing things.
Hey Joshua, great video !
Thank you for that !
Here are some thoughts :
33:45 _"What I'm going to be exposing here is that if we actually think of us as really existing not just existing according to a convention but actually really existing then we're going to have a puzzle"_
Here, you seem to be admitting that your entire critique of the different "atomist" views is predicated on a realist view of the self. So I was wondering, would anti-realism about the self solve these puzzles ?
*The duplicate challenge :*
You offer the _"duplicate"_ challenge (22:47), how would anti-realism solve that ? In anti-realism about the self, what you are according to me needs not be the same thing as what you are according to you... In that case what you are would not simply be an arrangement of atoms, you would be an arrangement of atoms that is accessed by a specific mind (or that is IN a specific mind), the self would be mind dependent (which I would hope is not a controversial position... If the self is a mind, how could a mind be mind independent ?)
This solves the _"duplicate"_ challenge, since the term "self" would then be an indexical term, such as the personal pronoun "I". Each duplicate (and each individual in general) would have a first person self, which would be different from whatever other individuals think about them... From whomever with other individuals identify them.
*The transporter experiment :*
At 28:38 you ask : _"what happens to you ?",_ if the self is indexical, then the arrangement of atoms that remains in the ship will develop its own sense of self, and the one that is created by the transporter will also develop its own sense of self.
29:00 _"the problem here is that it seems like merely third person external facts about atoms and their positions and their functions aren't going to include the first person information about your own sense of self where you actually sense yourself to be"_
Let's think about someone like Berkeley for example. For Berkeley, if x exists, then x is a mental object (idealism). If we both are in a room, and if you point to the chair in the room, you have a concept of the chair in your mind, and I have a concept of the chair in my mind, there is no "mind independent" chair that exists in reality. Whatever x is, we can only talk about the subjective or intersubjective x, there is no objective x. Whatever x is, there is only various _"first person sense"_ of what x is.
Ok, apply that to your _"transporter experiment"_ (or your _"duplicate"_ challenge for that matter), when we say that the self is an arrangement of atoms, that arrangement of atoms is a _"first person"_ concept situated in your brain. The _"first person sense of self"_ is also a bunch of arranged atoms in your brain (see connectionism).
I get this weird feeling hearing certain philosophers that atoms do not belong to the category of things that can be _"first person"._ But they never explain why. For the type of idealist described above, EVERYTHING is _"first person"..._
In general, if one is an anti-realist about atoms (anti-realist about science in general), then all atoms, including those in my brain, are not mind independent objects... So some atoms can very well account for my _"first person experience of self",_ since they already are mind dependent objects (a subject in that case), and they are in my mind... And my mind, my "self", would also be a mind dependent subject, an indexical.
29:42 _"One kind of response is to appeal not just to the positions of the atoms but to appeal to some psychological facts about you but then this is going to lead to a different view which is that your identity is not just grounded in your atoms these mindless atoms but that's somehow your identity is grounded in maybe some kind of mind or Consciousness so that would be a way of solving the problem but by Leading us to a different View"_
You see ? Why do you say it's a different view ? Why couldn't anti-real mindless atoms give rise to an anti-real consciousness ? For the anti-realist about atoms, _"mindless atoms"_ are nothing more than a concept in one's mind, a mind dependent subject... Why couldn't that mind dependent subject _"ground"_ consciousness ? Why couldn't an anti-real mind be emergent from anti-real mindless atoms ? (see connectionism).
*The demarcation problem :*
Same here, solved by anti-realism about the self.
*The brain minus puzzle :*
The _"brain minus puzzle"_ seems to be nothing more than a sorites argument ? Kind of stepped away from the functionalist view or the _"arrangement"_ view.
48:33 _"And by this I mean two things first a first person self is something that has a first person perspective a point of view what it's like to be you having thoughts and feelings you can experience uh the world from from your perspective and that this first person perspective of your own self and self-awareness is not reducible to purely third-person perspectiveless items like Mindless atoms"_
Here we see it again, the presupposition that atoms are _"third person perspectiveless items"._ But if when I talk about atoms, I refer to nothing more than the concept of atom that I have in my mind, the same concept of atom that I use in my naturalistic explanation of the world, then when I talk about atoms, I don't refer to anything _"third person"..._ The concept of atom is in my mind, to atoms are IN MY MIND, so it is first person (it's not _"third person"),_ and neither do I talk bout something that is necessarily _"perspectiveless"..._ Because, in particular, if these atoms give rise to a conscious mind, then those atoms will indeed have a perspective.
And this is not even controversial I think. For example, I can build an autonomous car, and I will describe this autonomous car as having a certain _"perspective"_ on the world, the autonomous car doesn't have access to all the information in the world (it is not omniscient), the autonomous car has a limited access to the world, limited by the range and scope of its sensors, and the computation that it makes from the data gathered by its sensors, therefore the autonomous car has a _"perspective"_ on the world.
49:14 _"The self is itself a an irreducible unit of reality"_
Reality refers to what is mind independent does it not ? How can the self be in reality then ? How can the self be mind independent ?
Finally, under your face in the video, one can find your name, your credentials, and the mention : _"author of who are you really"_
And this sums up the entire thing, and the solution to all the problems proposed in the video :
You don't need to be _"really"._
You can simply be "anti-really".
A much needed argument and very well presented. Your beginning description of material atoms as mindless is essential to understanding how the physical differs from the mental. That scientists must rely on mental concepts when describing mindless physical phenomena is an overlooked and underappreciated contradiction, for by peeling away the mental parts from the mindless physical parts, all experience and conceptual understanding of the physical vanishes. Only by describing the physical in terms of what it isn't does the term "physical" manage to survive at all.
Are you saying I'm invincible?
Well no, in fact the slightest bree-
Invincible
neat vid.
a few years back i had a discussion with a materialist (i'm a substance dualist interactionist) about elon musks experiments into neurolink. we were both very positive at the potential of this technology. i thought that experiments of directly connecting brains would be cool. to my surprise he was really scared about this prospect. it puzzled me for awhile. but then i realized that being a substance dualist i wasn't scared about losing self identity. but for him directly connecting 2 brains together neurologically makes it really hard to answer the question, how many minds are there?
seems to me substance dualists can have more confidence in answering this question. for the dualist it might be mysterious how the mind interacts with the brain but for the materialist there's a mystery as to why can't ANY interaction be a sufficient condition for mystery too. why is the interaction between brain to tongue, to sound, to the ear of the interlocutor's brain not a problem. but connecting the 2 brains together directly all of a sudden becomes a problem?
Interesting video but the answer is crystal clear if you ask me; theory 5! We are an arrangement of atoms in the brain in the form of a highly complex set of lots of different interacting molecules, from this our conciousness emerges. The emergent concept can be understood by a simple example, a single molecule of water isn't wet, but if you put a lot of them together the property of 'wetness' emerges. This wetness property will manifest with 10 billion water molecules but also with 8 or 5 billion. Now if you respresent the immense network of interacting molecules in our brain by a highly complex set of mathematical formulas with lots of different parameters. These parameters are all the inputs the brain takes in from it's environment and the outcome of the formula(s) is the action you do or the thought you have, the set of all these formulas is you. Now if the arrangement of molecules in your brain changes, one or more of these formulas might be altered as well, resulting in different thoughts or actions. Some formulas might dissapear altogether but you will always be the sum of the formulas present at any moment.
I don't see how your objection in the video is an objection at all: yes, if you would be able to duplicate the highly complex arrangement in a brain you could in theory duplicate your personality but that would be impossible to do, if you could do it you might have exact copies for a brief moment only, since the brains will have different inputs (parameters) right away and very soon have a slighly different set of formulas and therefore be a different person already, over time these formulas will differ more and more.
The problem w/ what you're describing is a simple matter of ontology. The emergence of wetness from a collection of individual water molecules is a difference in *degree* but not in kind. Fundamentally, the underlying substrate is still physical and therefore something one can articulate in terms of pure quantities (in other words some combination of momentum, charge, spin, amplitude, etc.) - but there is precisely *nothing* quantitative about the fundamentally qualitative experience of, say, the smell of coffee or the elation one feels when listening to your favorite piece of music. You can't tie a number (or any number of numbers) to such a thing and it's, frankly, pointless to even try.
And so when you appeal to pure complexity to try and, at least in principle, lay out a plausible path for how we might eventually explain how it is the brain purportedly produces consciousness, you're not justifying the underlying assumptions that you have to grant in order for this to be actually feasible. When you actually engage with those assumptions, the intractable problems become readily apparent.
To say that a physical substrate like the brain could produce its polar opposite in qualitative experience is no different than saying that you could rub two sticks together and get the feeling of happiness from it. It really is that ludicrous.
@@ryanashfyre464 I appreciate your feedback. I think the mind might appear to be in a different category, or as you describe it a difference in degree or kind, but this is not the case if you ask me. Consider the absolute basics from which the brain much have evolved, a simple signalling system, for example contact with nearby fire/smoke literally triggers a set of some chemical reactions, the compound created from this causes some kind of unpleasantness in your system, it's acidic or smelly or whatever. This is a purely chemical signal, now evolution only selects for this if it causes a beneficial function like a secondary cascade of reactions which give you a signal to move away. We know from co-evolution that two seperately evolved processes can merge to create a new functionality which, if beneficial to the organism, can continue to survive as a new function. Now try to picture thousands of these kind of processes evolving over hundreds of thousands of years, occuring simultaneously, signal merging is likely selected for since this would have some obvious benefits. I think the mind is simply the end result of this enterprise but it has become so complicated that we can't easily deduce it's origins anymore, since evolution merges, recombines, removes redundant parts, etc. So it's just a highly advanced signalling system and basically still a difference in degree but we perceive it as a difference in kind.
I like to consider the visual part of your concious experience, if you completely clear your mind of any thoughts and look around you you are basically no more then a natural video camera, something we can recreate ourselves from purely material components in the form of an actual video camera.
I think all the above described is the only plausible mechanism to get to where we are, building complexity from the ground up by incremental improvements over a timescale so large that its hard to fathom. This also seems to be what the science points towards.
@@Myrmion909 >] "I like to consider the visual part of your concious experience, if you completely clear your mind of any thoughts and look around you you are basically no more then a natural video camera, something we can recreate ourselves from purely material components in the form of an actual video camera."
Since you went out of your way to bring up visual experience, this seems an opportune moment to bring up what's colloquially known as the "visual binding problem" - in other words how disparate information in the brain could, even from first princples, combine into the coherent experience of say, a red square or a blue circle.
Simply put, we've mapped a comprehensive enough analysis of the brain to affirmatively conclude that there's no mysterious section of the brain left that could be doing this, and so further appeals to complexity would appear to be wholly unjustified. There's an explanatory gap here that simply cannot be filled by looking at the brain alone.
>] "I think all the above described is the only plausible mechanism to get to where we are, building complexity from the ground up by incremental improvements over a timescale so large that its hard to fathom. This also seems to be what the science points towards."
I would propose precisely the opposite and would submit for your consideration the empirically verified phenomenon of DID (dissociate identity disorder, otherwise known as multiple personalities) to show that this is clearly the case.
This is, perhaps, the single most confounding mystery in all of neuroscience - how it is that what was clearly one unified mind can dissociate itself to allow apparently separate personalities to operate entirely on their own. And as if that weren't enough, these personalities have even been reported to be able to observe one another in a shared dreamscape w/ the host personality able to relay the individual perspective of each of these personalities as if it were its own.
This is anything but a mind being built from the ground up. Precisely the opposite in fact. A preexisting mind can, in ways that precisely no one can explain, separate to become two or more; the one becoming many. From this alone we can make the argument, verified through empirical observation, that minds are a top-down phenomenon, not bottom-up through appeals to sheer complexity that simply leave too much question begging and an explanatory gap that appears impossible to account for.
Excellent stuff as always! Big fan! Would you be so kind as to make a part 2 where you continue the video about the questions that can be raised against the identity first-position?
Josh, I enjoy how you walk us through these thought puzzles!
I appreciate every video Josh makes. These are huge philosophical concepts clearly presented so the average person can understand it. Great book too!
I get the impression that the question "what am I?" has not received nearly the same amount of attention as "is the mental physical?" and "what makes A and B the same person over time?". I'm often left wondering what, say non-reductive physicalists or psychological criterion of identity theorists think about the first question. Shouldn't they have an answer? Substance dualists, idealists, and constitutionalists have an answer!
Great video! Bernardo Kastrup's Analytic Idealism dovetails with this perfectly. Your brain is not the generator of consciousness, it's the image of consciousness-a representation from a third-person perspective. This preserves the correlation, but flips the causal arrow around. As Josh demonstrated, that instantly resolves a litany of seemingly unsolvable problems presented by the materialist (and probably dualist) perspective.
P1 - If what I am is real (objective, stance independent), then what I am according to you is the same thing as what I am according to me.
P2 - There is a difference between what I am according to you, and what I am according to me (qualia).
C1 - Therefore, I am not real (objective, stance independent).
From there two arguments can follow :
P3 - I am reducible to atoms (physicalism).
C2 - Therefore atoms are not real (objective, stance independent)
Or :
P3' - Atoms are real (objective, stance independent)
C2' - Therefore I am not reducible to atoms (physicalism is false)
One philosopher's modus ponens is another's modus ponens.
It seems that either realism about atoms is false (C2), or that physicalism is false (C2').
The other possibility is that the self doesn't exist I guess...
Defense of P2 : If there were no difference between what I am according to you, and what I am according to me, then why do doctors make diagnostics based on first person accounts of their patients ?
P1 and P2: The first two premises argue that if the nature of 'what I am' is objective, then there should be no difference between your perception of 'me' and my own perception. The difference in perception is attributed to qualia. If there is indeed a difference, then 'what I am' is not stance-independent.
This makes sense to a degree, but one could argue that our understanding or perception of an objective reality can still be subjective. For instance, two people can look at the same mountain, and one sees a challenge to conquer while another sees a place of peace and reflection. The mountain, in its objective state, remains unchanged. The differences lie in the subjective interpretations.
P3 and C2: If the self is reducible to atoms (a physicalist stance), and if the self is not real in the objective sense, then atoms (being the basis of the self) cannot be real in an objective sense either.
This is a leap in logic. It's like saying if a story isn't true, then the words that make up the story aren't real. The medium (atoms, words) can remain objective and real even if the specific configuration or interpretation (self, story) is subjective.
P3' and C2': The converse suggests that if atoms are objectively real, then the self can't be just atoms, implying physicalism is false.
This follows logically from the previous statements, but the same critique about conflating the medium with interpretation applies.
@@7200darkcharm *-"This is a leap in logic. It's like saying if a story isn't true, then the words that make up the story aren't real. The medium (atoms, words) can remain objective and real even if the specific configuration or interpretation (self, story) is subjective."*
Mmm... If X is objective (real), then if you describe X by attributing it the property P, and if I describe X by attributing it the property nonP, then one of us is wrong.
Yes ? I would say that is another definition of what "objective" means.
If you agree with that, that means that when I describe myself, I attribute to myself my qualia. And when you describe me, you will not attribute qualia to me, since you don't have access to them.
Therefore whatever is the substrate of the self, it seems that it cannot be something objective, because a multiplicity or unicity of objective things cannot give rise to a subjective totality. (this is a missing premise in my argument I think, and you might reject that "law of composition". Maybe this is what you mean when you talk about *"medium"* ?)
P3 can only follow if one grants the metaphysical assumptions of Materialism, which I certainly do not. In fact there is precisely no one, past or present, that can even give a proper definition for what it even means to be "physical" that doesn't reduce itself to absurdity or, frankly, being just an attitude in how one labels their observations.
Furthermore, even *if* one were to grant that there is something that we call a "physical world" that exists a mind-independent reality, regardless as to whether we're there to observe it or not, your idea of the atom seems to betray a misunderstanding of the actual science going on here. There's no such thing as an atom, just like there's actually no such thing as a particle or subatomic particle. What we've built is a convenient *narrative* that allows us to predict the behavior of natue in such a way that the world acts *as if* atoms and particles actually existed, which is not the same thing as saying that they actually do.
1st option seems most plausible to me. just a centerless seethe of patterns, perhaps always in a novel configuration. whatever happens is only ever self-referential, there's no 'other', there's no fact of the matter about 'true meanings' of linguistic units, identity, self, substance...
just patterns, maybe ad infinitum.
great lecture. I always enjoy your videos. I couldn't really follow your discussion of the demarcation problem though. not sure what you mean by "overlapping." overlapping what? each other? where?
Good to see some more videos from you:)
I’m wondering how the persistence principle (as you are using it in this video) and the Brain Minus argument avoid the false continuum fallacy. I would think that a person who believes that our identity is the same as the material we are composed of might object to a simple view composition as you present it. A person could posit that the removal of an atom or group of atoms doesn’t change intrinsic properties of Being B as you do but only to a point. At some point a certain number of atoms being removed does change a being intrinsically. It seems that a hidden assumption might be present. Something like this “Because the line at which the removal of atoms changes a being’s intrinsic properties is hard to determine we can say that atomic grounding is invalidated”. Am I missing something?
Why think Brian-Minus never lost A? Is it essentially composed of all my atoms but A?
I appreciate it!
Do you have any thoughts on Sam Coleman's version of panqualityism?
Subscribed! I didn't realize I hadn't subscribed before.
Brilliant
In this speculative scenario, let's consider Leibniz's Monad (first emanation of God), from the philosophical work "The Monadology", as an abstract representation of the zero-dimensional space that binds quarks together with the Strong Nuclear Force:
1) Indivisibility and Unity: Monads, as indivisible entities, mirror the nature of quarks, which are deemed elementary and indivisible particles in our theoretical context. Just as monads possess unity and indivisibility, quarks are unified in their interactions through the Strong Nuclear Force.
2) Interconnectedness: In the Monadology, monads are interconnected in a vast network. In a parallel manner, the interconnectedness of quarks through the strong force could be metaphorically represented by the interplay of monads, forming a web that holds particles together.
3) Inherent Properties: Just as monads possess inherent perceptions and appetitions, quarks could be thought of as having intrinsic properties like color charge, reflecting the inherent qualities of monads and influencing their interactions.
4) Harmony: The concept of monads contributing to universal harmony resonates with the idea that the Strong Nuclear Force maintains harmony within atomic nuclei by counteracting the electromagnetic repulsion between protons, allowing for the stability of matter.
5) Pre-established Harmony: Monads' pre-established harmony aligns with the idea that the strong force was pre-designed to ensure stable interactions among quarks, orchestrating their behavior in a way that parallels the harmony envisaged by Leibniz.
6) Non-Mechanical Interaction: Monads interact non-mechanically, mirroring the non-mechanical interactions of quarks through gluon exchange. This connection might be seen as a metaphorical reflection of the intricacies of quark-gluon dynamics.
7) Holism: The holistic perspective of monads could symbolize how quarks, like the monads' interconnections, contribute holistically to the structure and behavior of particles through the strong force interactions.
em·a·na·tion
noun
an abstract but perceptible thing that issues or originates from a source.
Metaphysics
Context
The monad, the word and the idea, belongs to the Western philosophical tradition and has been used by various authors. Leibniz, who was exceptionally well-read, could not have ignored this, but he did not use it himself until mid-1696 when he was sending for print his New System.
Apparently he found with it a convenient way to expound his own philosophy as it was elaborated in this period. What he proposed can be seen as a modification of occasionalism developed by latter-day Cartesians. Leibniz surmised that there are indefinitely many substances individually 'programmed' to act in a predetermined way, each substance being coordinated with all the others.
This is the pre-established harmony which solved the mind-body problem, but at the cost of declaring any interaction between substances a mere appearance.
Summary
The rhetorical strategy adopted by Leibniz in The Monadology is fairly obvious as the text begins with a description of monads (proceeding from simple to complicated instances),
then it turns to their principle or creator and
finishes by using both to explain the world.
(I) As far as Leibniz allows just one type of element in the building of the universe his system is monistic. The unique element has been 'given the general name monad or entelechy' and described as 'a simple substance' (§§1, 19). When Leibniz says that monads are 'simple,' he means that "which is one, has no parts and is therefore indivisible".
Relying on the Greek etymology of the word entelechie (§18), Leibniz posits quantitative differences in perfection between monads which leads to a hierarchical ordering. The basic order is three-tiered:
(1) entelechies or created monads (§48),
(2) souls or entelechies with perception and memory (§19), and
(3) spirits or rational souls (§82).
Whatever is said about the lower ones (entelechies) is valid for the higher (souls and spirits) but not vice versa. As none of them is without a body (§72), there is a corresponding hierarchy of
(1) living beings and animals
(2), the latter being either non-reasonable or reasonable.
The degree of perfection in each case corresponds to cognitive abilities and only spirits or reasonable animals are able to grasp the ideas of both the world and its creator. Some monads have power over others because they can perceive with greater clarity, but primarily, one monad is said to dominate another if it contains the reasons for the actions of other(s). Leibniz believed that any body, such as the body of an animal or man, has one dominant monad which controls the others within it. This dominant monad is often referred to as the soul.
(II) God is also said to be a simple substance (§47) but it is the only one necessary (§§38-9) and without a body attached (§72). Monads perceive others "with varying degrees of clarity, except for God, who perceives all monads with utter clarity". God could take any and all perspectives, knowing of both potentiality and actuality. As well as that God in all his power would know the universe from each of the infinite perspectives at the same time, and so his perspectives-his thoughts-"simply are monads". Creation is a permanent state, thus "[monads] are generated, so to speak, by continual fulgurations of the Divinity" (§47). Any perfection comes from being created while imperfection is a limitation of nature (§42). The monads are unaffected by each other, but each have a unique way of expressing themselves in the universe, in accordance with God's infinite will.
(III) Composite substances or matter are "actually sub-divided without end" and have the properties of their infinitesimal parts (§65). A notorious passage (§67) explains that "each portion of matter can be conceived as like a garden full of plants, or like a pond full of fish. But each branch of a plant, each organ of an animal, each drop of its bodily fluids is also a similar garden or a similar pond". There are no interactions between different monads nor between entelechies and their bodies but everything is regulated by the pre-established harmony (§§78-9). Much like how one clock may be in synchronicity with another, but the first clock is not caused by the second (or vice versa), rather they are only keeping the same time because the last person to wind them set them to the same time. So it is with monads; they may seem to cause each other, but rather they are, in a sense, "wound" by God's pre-established harmony, and thus appear to be in synchronicity. Leibniz concludes that "if we could understand the order of the universe well enough, we would find that it surpasses all the wishes of the wisest people, and that it is impossible to make it better than it is-not merely in respect of the whole in general, but also in respect of ourselves in particular" (§90).
In his day, atoms were proposed to be the smallest division of matter. Within Leibniz's theory, however, substances are not technically real, so monads are not the smallest part of matter, rather they are the only things which are, in fact, real. To Leibniz, space and time were an illusion, and likewise substance itself. The only things that could be called real were utterly simple beings of psychic activity "endowed with perception and appetite."
The other objects, which we call matter, are merely phenomena of these simple perceivers. "Leibniz says, 'I don't really eliminate body, but reduce [revoco] it to what it is. For I show that corporeal mass [massa], which is thought to have something over and above simple substances, is not a substance, but a phenomenon resulting from simple substances, which alone have unity and absolute reality.' (G II 275/AG 181)" Leibniz's philosophy is sometimes called "'panpsychic idealism' because these substances are psychic rather than material". That is to say, they are mind-like substances, not possessing spatial reality. "In other words, in the Leibnizian monadology, simple substances are mind-like entities that do not, strictly speaking, exist in space but that represent the universe from a unique perspective." It is the harmony between the perceptions of the monads which creates what we call substances, but that does not mean the substances are real in and of themselves.
(IV) Leibniz uses his theory of Monads to support his argument that we live in the best of all possible worlds. He uses his basis of perception but not interaction among monads to explain that all monads must draw their essence from one ultimate monad. He then claims that this ultimate monad would be God because a monad is a “simple substance” and God is simplest of all substances, He cannot be broken down any further. This means that all monads perceive “with varying degrees of perception, except for God, who perceives all monads with utter clarity”.
This superior perception of God then would apply in much the same way that he says a dominant monad controls our soul, all other monads associated with it would, essentially, shade themselves towards Him. With all monads being created by the ultimate monad and shading themselves in the image of this ultimate monad, Leibniz argues that it would be impossible to conceive of a more perfect world because all things in the world are created by and imitating the best possible monad.
[2D is not the center of the universe,
0D is the center of the mirror universe]:
The mirror universe theory is based on the concept of parity violation, which was discovered in the 1950s. Parity violation refers to the observation that certain processes in particle physics don't behave the same way when their coordinates are reversed. This discovery led to the idea that there might be a mirror image of our universe where particles and their properties are flipped.
In this mirror universe, the fundamental particles that make up matter, such as electrons, protons, and neutrinos, would have their charges reversed. For example, in our universe, electrons have a negative charge, but in the mirror universe, they might have a positive charge.
Furthermore, another aspect of the mirror universe theory involves chirality, which refers to the property of particles behaving differently from their mirror images. In our universe, particles have a certain handedness or chirality, but in the mirror universe, this chirality could be reversed.
Leibniz or Newton:
Quantum mechanics is more compatible with Leibniz's relational view of the universe than Newton's absolute view of the universe.
In Newton's absolute view, space and time are absolute and independent entities that exist on their own, independent of the objects and events that take place within them. This view implies that there is a privileged observer who can observe the universe from a neutral and objective perspective.
On the other hand, Leibniz's relational view holds that space and time are not absolute, but are instead relational concepts that are defined by the relationships between objects and events in the universe. This view implies that there is no privileged observer and that observations are always made from a particular point of view.
Quantum mechanics is more compatible with the relational view because it emphasizes the role of observers and the context of measurement in determining the properties of particles. In quantum mechanics, the properties of particles are not absolute, but are instead defined by their relationships with other particles and the measuring apparatus. This means that observations are always made from a particular point of view and that there is no neutral and objective perspective.
Overall, quantum mechanics suggests that the universe is fundamentally relational rather than absolute, and is therefore more compatible with Leibniz's relational view than Newton's absolute view.
What are the two kinds of truth according to Leibniz?
There are two kinds of truths, those of reasoning and those of fact. Truths of fact are contingent and their opposite is possible. Truths of reasoning are necessary and their opposite is impossible.
What is the difference between Newton and Leibniz calculus?
Newton's calculus is about functions.
Leibniz's calculus is about relations defined by constraints.
In Newton's calculus, there is (what would now be called) a limit built into every operation.
In Leibniz's calculus, the limit is a separate operation.
What are the arguments against Leibniz?
Critics of Leibniz argue that the world contains an amount of suffering too great to permit belief in philosophical optimism. The claim that we live in the best of all possible worlds drew scorn most notably from Voltaire, who lampooned it in his comic novella Candide.
Great video Josh!
The human ego dilemma: when we look out at the world, there appears a collection of objects with continuous identities across time, which lends us to form expectations about what will happen in the following moment(s), but these expectations often fail because when we look closer at reality we find that it's actually in a constant state of flux and identity is only a concept that ignores this impermanent nature.
False dichotomy. Water is fluid in regular conditions, but even in that fluidity, it has a structure that prevents it from just being everywhere all at once.
Heraclit vs Parmenides all over again
Great vid
Watching later when I have time, commenting for the a1g0
I know Peter Younger!
You are so sweet
It seems that you actually used a silly philosophical trick