Leibniz Law
Who was Leibniz? Well, he's an old dead dude. But he came up with a lot of neat math stuff...you know, Calculus? He was one of the key people in advancing mathematics to the modern place. He was also a kick-butt philosopher. He came up with a very intuitive law called "Leibniz Law" (-_-). It goes like this:
Let A be some entity/property/process. A = whatever placeholder you want it to be.
If A = A, then whatever is true of A will be true of A. Shocked? It goes on.
If A = A, whatever is possibly true of A will be possibly true of A. Shocked yet? Just wait.
Really quick, we need to understand what philosophers mean by "possible worlds". Possible worlds are the way the world could have been, or the way the world may be. They are semantic tools for philosophers to describe possibility. So, for example, if I say "it's possible that in the future, I may buy a dog", I can say that because in my mind, that's a perfectly coherent scenario. That is, there is nothing internally contradictory about the possibility that I may buy a dog sometime in the future. Thus, because this is possible, there is a possible world where I own a dog. Let's make one more application. Suppose I say "it's possible that God exists." That's because I can envision that as a possible scenario in my mind, and there's nothing logically incoherent about that possibility (all attempts to prove God to be logically incoherent have been abject failures). Hence, there is a possible world where God exists. This is the essence of modal logic-the logic of possibilities. So let's apply that Leibniz Law. If A = God, whenever I talk about God, God must be God in all possible worlds (duh). I can't envision any non-God entity and call that God (duh). So here's what that means for Leibniz's Law:
If A = A, then whatever is true of A will be true of A.
If A = A, then whatever is possibly true of A will be possibly true of A.
If A = A, in all possible worlds, A will always be A.
This is intuitive enough. As a side note, if something is true in all possible worlds, it is necessarily true. That is to say that there is no other possible way it could have been. For example, take 1 + 1 = 2. We could have had any symbols we wanted to represent that, but as for the concept itself-one object plus another object equaling a consistent quantity of two objects-there is no other way the world could have been. One object could never have equaled two objects, etc. Back to Leibnuts, suppose you have A and B. If someone claims they are identical, then this is what should follow:
If A = B, whatever is true of A will be true of B
Whatever is possibly true of A will be possibly true of B
In all possible worlds, A = B
So this is where the fun begins :)
Let A be some entity/property/process. A = whatever placeholder you want it to be.
If A = A, then whatever is true of A will be true of A. Shocked? It goes on.
If A = A, whatever is possibly true of A will be possibly true of A. Shocked yet? Just wait.
Really quick, we need to understand what philosophers mean by "possible worlds". Possible worlds are the way the world could have been, or the way the world may be. They are semantic tools for philosophers to describe possibility. So, for example, if I say "it's possible that in the future, I may buy a dog", I can say that because in my mind, that's a perfectly coherent scenario. That is, there is nothing internally contradictory about the possibility that I may buy a dog sometime in the future. Thus, because this is possible, there is a possible world where I own a dog. Let's make one more application. Suppose I say "it's possible that God exists." That's because I can envision that as a possible scenario in my mind, and there's nothing logically incoherent about that possibility (all attempts to prove God to be logically incoherent have been abject failures). Hence, there is a possible world where God exists. This is the essence of modal logic-the logic of possibilities. So let's apply that Leibniz Law. If A = God, whenever I talk about God, God must be God in all possible worlds (duh). I can't envision any non-God entity and call that God (duh). So here's what that means for Leibniz's Law:
If A = A, then whatever is true of A will be true of A.
If A = A, then whatever is possibly true of A will be possibly true of A.
If A = A, in all possible worlds, A will always be A.
This is intuitive enough. As a side note, if something is true in all possible worlds, it is necessarily true. That is to say that there is no other possible way it could have been. For example, take 1 + 1 = 2. We could have had any symbols we wanted to represent that, but as for the concept itself-one object plus another object equaling a consistent quantity of two objects-there is no other way the world could have been. One object could never have equaled two objects, etc. Back to Leibnuts, suppose you have A and B. If someone claims they are identical, then this is what should follow:
If A = B, whatever is true of A will be true of B
Whatever is possibly true of A will be possibly true of B
In all possible worlds, A = B
So this is where the fun begins :)
Dreams
Interestingly, when I dream, you do not find the subjective experience of the dream in and of itself inside the brain chemistry. At best, you can only find biological neuro-correlates. However, this tells us something extremely important...namely that materialism is false. What?? That's right-dreams DISPROVE naturalistic materialism...and even atheism. How? Well, remember Leibniz Law. If it were true that consciousness were reducible to brain chemistry, it should be fully describable in terms of brain chemistry (that's what it means to be reducible). That would mean all the functions of consciousness-including dreams-must be reducible. But they're not. I'm not saying consciousness is not correlated to brain chemistry-it most certainly is. But I'm saying that it's not reducible to brain chemistry; it is something distinct from the brain.
A word about Strong Emergence
Emergence is the general principle that a whole system can have properties that "emerge" that it's parts do not have. Think of a bird's ability to fly. That ability cannot be predicated of any individual wing or feather or cell. When the system is put together, however, new properties emerge. In this case, however, the new ability (flight) is still completely reducible to its constituents (if we really really wanted to, we could describe flight in terms of the motions of the individual "parts"). Strong emergence, however, was invented solely for consciousness. It's the idea that perhaps consciousness is a property that emerges from the brain chemistry, but is nevertheless distinct from it. This to me seems highly implausible-in fact incoherent. It fails to escape the interaction problem. What is the interaction problem? How can an immaterial entity, such as the mind, interact with a material body if they are two completely different things? Two entities only interact if they share a common property...yet in this case, if the mind is something that is completely different from the brain, then they can share no common property. Hence, they could not interact.
It's the issue with an immaterial object interacting with a material object. For all my atheist friends out there who want to believe this is coherent when we're talking about strong emergence, consider dualism (which I reject as incoherent). Dualism is the position of many Christians. It says that we have an immaterial soul that interacts with a material body. How is that coherent though? How is it possible for a soul/mind, which is supposedly wholly other and thus non-reducible to matter, to interact with a body? This seems to be a favorite argument against dualism from my atheist friends, and I actually agree with it. Yet it's for the same reason that I feel obligated to reject strong emergence. It does not escape the interaction problem.
Additionally, strong emergence is a case of special pleading. For every other emergent phenomena (hurricanes, the Krebbs Cycle, etc), we can describe them in terms of their constituent parts. Yet somehow (dare I say...magically?), in this one special case something ontologically distinct just pops into existence. My friend Animating Rebel has highlighted further problems here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UuqP6pxpe6o
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEONoJ5-8tQ
Back to Dreams
Dreams, however, tell us something even more important. They in fact, tell us two things. First, they tell us that the mind cannot be reduced to matter. I'll formulate it in terms of premises so this can be easily seen. We will define the Grey matter of your brain as M, and Dreams as D. If M = D...then whatever is true of one should be true of the other.
1.) The content of D cannot be reduced M
2.) The content of M can be reduced to M
3.) Therefore, there is something true of D that is not true of M (it's irreducible to M, whereas M is reducible to M)
4.) Therefore, D is not reducible to M
5.) D is a function of consciousness
6.) Therefore, consciousness is not reducible to M
They also tell us something more-namely, that consciousness cannot be a property of the brain. Once again, it's surely correlated-but this argument will demonstrate that consciousness is not generated by the brain, and thus is not a process. To understand this argument, consider a dream world. The contents of the dream exist solely in your mind. They are not made of real "matter" per the argument above; rather, they are made up of your consciousness. It seems wholly conceivable that idealism is true; namely, that this world is the projection of a much larger consciousness, and we all exist in that Mind. It seems conceivable that there could be a world where only consciousness exists (i.e a dream world). So:
1.) It is possible that consciousness is the only thing that exists (justification: idealism is possibly true-there's nothing internally incoherent about it)
2.) There is a possible world where consciousness is the only thing that exists
3.) Possible worlds cannot contain properties or processes alone (you can't have "tall" without there being anyone tall, for example)
4.) There is something true of consciousness (can conceivably exist in a possible world alone) that is not true of a property or process (cannot exist in a possible world alone).
5.) Therefore, consciousness is not a property/process
The Last viable option
This excludes metaphysical naturalism. As I've argued above, the problem of two fundamentally different substances interacting excludes dualism (i.e the interaction problem) and property dualism/strong emergence. I think the interaction problem demonstrates that a type of monism must be true. Only one substance can exist in reality. I will re-post the argument for idealism from an earlier blog post here:
Introspective Argument
Premise 1: The Mind exists
Justification: No one who's thinking can deny this.
Premise 2: The properties of the mind are not that which matter has.
Justification: Above arguments.
Conclusion 1: Mind is not reducible to matter-because they are not identical. The properties of the mind don't reduce to physical properties of matter. Hence, by Leibniz Law, they are not identical.
Premise 3: Substance dualism is false.
Justification: This will probably be most controversial among Christians, but I think the materialist actually knows what's up here. If, as the dualist says, there is an immaterial soul interacting with a material body, how should they interact?
Here's what I mean. We know square circles don't exist because those are logically incoherent entities-that is, squares and circles have properties that are directly opposed. They could never be joined together as one shape. How can something that's fundamentally immaterial interact with something material? They would just go through each other. Thus, if the soul is immaterial, how could it ever interact with a material body?
Interaction requires that the two things interacting share a common property. But if the immaterial soul (i.e consciousness) shares a common property with matter, then they can't be two separate substances. Either mind shares a physical property with matter, making mind physical, or matter shares a mental property with mind, making matter actually mental. The common property can't be a combination of matter and mind, because otherwise, you have the same interaction problem arising. Thus, either everything has to be mind, or everything has to be matter. There is no middle ground.
But if we've already established that the mind exists, and mind is not reducible to non-mind, then mind is a non-physical entity. However, if substance dualism is false, then no other substance can exist. Mind wouldn't be able to interact with any other substance...yet it clearly interacts with our bodies. Hence, the conclusion follows:
ALL IS MIND.
Idealism is true. This leads us to accept one of two conclusions.
SolipsismSolipsism is the view that only your mind exists and everything is a projection of it. But there's a strong defeater for solipsism. For one, if this world were really a projection of my mind, the moment I become aware of that possibility, I should be able to manipulate it (ever had a lucid dream?).There's an even stronger defeater though. If this world were a projection of my consciousness, then the external world (that is, the environment external to me) is built of my consciousness. The consciousness that exists "out there" is self-reflexive. That is, it exists with respect to me. However, any consciousness that exists with respect to me (to my own self), must be self-conscious. It is, after all, my consciousness. Then the obvious question arises: how can I be unconscious of my own consciousness? The consciousness in the environment must be self-conscious, since it only exists with respect to the self. So I should be omniscient if solipsism were true. I cannot be unconscious of something that is allegedly part of my own consciousness. That's a contradiction in terms. Hence, we are left with only one other alternative.
Theistic Idealism
One of the obvious questions asked of idealists is this: if the world truly exists as fundamentally mental, why can't I manipulate it by just thinking of it? Easy. This world isn't solely my consciousness. The alternative to solipsism is this: this world exists in a much larger mind, and we're all projections of that mind. This Mind we can call "God". Therefore, the reason I can't manipulate the structure of the world is because God Himself-the much larger Mind-is in control of the structure of the experience. We are His creations-thus, we exist in the environment He Himself has projected with His mind. Given that the premises of the Introspective Argument are self-evidently true, and solipsism is self-evidently false, we are left with no other alternative. Given how consciousness cannot be identical to brain chemistry via Leibniz Law, we are left with the conclusion that there is a much larger Mind that contains our minds. This has exciting implications for theology, philosophy-man, how you live your life in general. I will flesh those out later. This post is meant to be an introduction to idealism, and the reasons that led me to accept it over substance dualism. For anyone who cared enough to read, I hope you got a lot out of this argument. I will link some helpful resources for further investigation. Thanks for reading! :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4l1lQMCOguw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBsI_ay8K70&list=UU5qDet6sa6rODi7t6wfpg8g
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=720zEnzgTyM
The first two may be really helpful. For scientific evidence from quantum mechanics, see here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4C5pq7W5yRM
And if you're interested in how idealists envision the interaction between brain and mind, see here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBsI_ay8K70
It's the issue with an immaterial object interacting with a material object. For all my atheist friends out there who want to believe this is coherent when we're talking about strong emergence, consider dualism (which I reject as incoherent). Dualism is the position of many Christians. It says that we have an immaterial soul that interacts with a material body. How is that coherent though? How is it possible for a soul/mind, which is supposedly wholly other and thus non-reducible to matter, to interact with a body? This seems to be a favorite argument against dualism from my atheist friends, and I actually agree with it. Yet it's for the same reason that I feel obligated to reject strong emergence. It does not escape the interaction problem.
Additionally, strong emergence is a case of special pleading. For every other emergent phenomena (hurricanes, the Krebbs Cycle, etc), we can describe them in terms of their constituent parts. Yet somehow (dare I say...magically?), in this one special case something ontologically distinct just pops into existence. My friend Animating Rebel has highlighted further problems here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UuqP6pxpe6o
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEONoJ5-8tQ
Back to Dreams
Dreams, however, tell us something even more important. They in fact, tell us two things. First, they tell us that the mind cannot be reduced to matter. I'll formulate it in terms of premises so this can be easily seen. We will define the Grey matter of your brain as M, and Dreams as D. If M = D...then whatever is true of one should be true of the other.
1.) The content of D cannot be reduced M
2.) The content of M can be reduced to M
3.) Therefore, there is something true of D that is not true of M (it's irreducible to M, whereas M is reducible to M)
4.) Therefore, D is not reducible to M
5.) D is a function of consciousness
6.) Therefore, consciousness is not reducible to M
They also tell us something more-namely, that consciousness cannot be a property of the brain. Once again, it's surely correlated-but this argument will demonstrate that consciousness is not generated by the brain, and thus is not a process. To understand this argument, consider a dream world. The contents of the dream exist solely in your mind. They are not made of real "matter" per the argument above; rather, they are made up of your consciousness. It seems wholly conceivable that idealism is true; namely, that this world is the projection of a much larger consciousness, and we all exist in that Mind. It seems conceivable that there could be a world where only consciousness exists (i.e a dream world). So:
1.) It is possible that consciousness is the only thing that exists (justification: idealism is possibly true-there's nothing internally incoherent about it)
2.) There is a possible world where consciousness is the only thing that exists
3.) Possible worlds cannot contain properties or processes alone (you can't have "tall" without there being anyone tall, for example)
4.) There is something true of consciousness (can conceivably exist in a possible world alone) that is not true of a property or process (cannot exist in a possible world alone).
5.) Therefore, consciousness is not a property/process
The Last viable option
This excludes metaphysical naturalism. As I've argued above, the problem of two fundamentally different substances interacting excludes dualism (i.e the interaction problem) and property dualism/strong emergence. I think the interaction problem demonstrates that a type of monism must be true. Only one substance can exist in reality. I will re-post the argument for idealism from an earlier blog post here:
Introspective Argument
Premise 1: The Mind exists
Justification: No one who's thinking can deny this.
Premise 2: The properties of the mind are not that which matter has.
Justification: Above arguments.
Conclusion 1: Mind is not reducible to matter-because they are not identical. The properties of the mind don't reduce to physical properties of matter. Hence, by Leibniz Law, they are not identical.
Premise 3: Substance dualism is false.
Justification: This will probably be most controversial among Christians, but I think the materialist actually knows what's up here. If, as the dualist says, there is an immaterial soul interacting with a material body, how should they interact?
Here's what I mean. We know square circles don't exist because those are logically incoherent entities-that is, squares and circles have properties that are directly opposed. They could never be joined together as one shape. How can something that's fundamentally immaterial interact with something material? They would just go through each other. Thus, if the soul is immaterial, how could it ever interact with a material body?
Interaction requires that the two things interacting share a common property. But if the immaterial soul (i.e consciousness) shares a common property with matter, then they can't be two separate substances. Either mind shares a physical property with matter, making mind physical, or matter shares a mental property with mind, making matter actually mental. The common property can't be a combination of matter and mind, because otherwise, you have the same interaction problem arising. Thus, either everything has to be mind, or everything has to be matter. There is no middle ground.
But if we've already established that the mind exists, and mind is not reducible to non-mind, then mind is a non-physical entity. However, if substance dualism is false, then no other substance can exist. Mind wouldn't be able to interact with any other substance...yet it clearly interacts with our bodies. Hence, the conclusion follows:
ALL IS MIND.
Idealism is true. This leads us to accept one of two conclusions.
SolipsismSolipsism is the view that only your mind exists and everything is a projection of it. But there's a strong defeater for solipsism. For one, if this world were really a projection of my mind, the moment I become aware of that possibility, I should be able to manipulate it (ever had a lucid dream?).There's an even stronger defeater though. If this world were a projection of my consciousness, then the external world (that is, the environment external to me) is built of my consciousness. The consciousness that exists "out there" is self-reflexive. That is, it exists with respect to me. However, any consciousness that exists with respect to me (to my own self), must be self-conscious. It is, after all, my consciousness. Then the obvious question arises: how can I be unconscious of my own consciousness? The consciousness in the environment must be self-conscious, since it only exists with respect to the self. So I should be omniscient if solipsism were true. I cannot be unconscious of something that is allegedly part of my own consciousness. That's a contradiction in terms. Hence, we are left with only one other alternative.
Theistic Idealism
One of the obvious questions asked of idealists is this: if the world truly exists as fundamentally mental, why can't I manipulate it by just thinking of it? Easy. This world isn't solely my consciousness. The alternative to solipsism is this: this world exists in a much larger mind, and we're all projections of that mind. This Mind we can call "God". Therefore, the reason I can't manipulate the structure of the world is because God Himself-the much larger Mind-is in control of the structure of the experience. We are His creations-thus, we exist in the environment He Himself has projected with His mind. Given that the premises of the Introspective Argument are self-evidently true, and solipsism is self-evidently false, we are left with no other alternative. Given how consciousness cannot be identical to brain chemistry via Leibniz Law, we are left with the conclusion that there is a much larger Mind that contains our minds. This has exciting implications for theology, philosophy-man, how you live your life in general. I will flesh those out later. This post is meant to be an introduction to idealism, and the reasons that led me to accept it over substance dualism. For anyone who cared enough to read, I hope you got a lot out of this argument. I will link some helpful resources for further investigation. Thanks for reading! :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4l1lQMCOguw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBsI_ay8K70&list=UU5qDet6sa6rODi7t6wfpg8g
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=720zEnzgTyM
The first two may be really helpful. For scientific evidence from quantum mechanics, see here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4C5pq7W5yRM
And if you're interested in how idealists envision the interaction between brain and mind, see here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBsI_ay8K70
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