Sorry about the late reply. I've wanted to get back to this but haven't had the time to do it justice.
Actually, I don't quite agree with Berkeley's idealism. It's more that I think the mind is fundamental, and that since substance dualism is false, then reality must also be mental. Which would imply the existence of a God.
My first comment is a suggestion for you to move away from using the term "God" all the time. It's mostly just confusing when you use a term with a pretty well established definition (in the western world) and then redefine it to something completely different. Spinoza was a big fan of doing this, and it annoyed the crap out of his contemporaries too
. I suggest using a term like "supernatural being", or something like that. I mean, "God" these days is basically the
name for the Christian God.
There's also some interesting arguments that argue that integrated information is a conscious state, (
http://www.biolbull.org/content/215/3/216.full) and that according to the Wheeler DeWitt equation, the universe is integrated information, so the universe is a conscious state.
*shudders* phenomenology... >.<
I mostly only read the introduction to that article (I don't have all day), and I actually agree with the idea that consciousness is a result of complexity, but I felt like that article was going to be way too long-winded and complex (lol irony) when it could be so simple. The theory itself also leads to conclusions which I find undesirable and unrealistic (e.g. the universe is conscious).
Personally I'm a big fan of hardcore evolutionary theory and I pretty much always agree with Daniel Dennett's views. Consciousness is simply a consequence of the complexity of our brains, and all our conscious thoughts are a consequence of brain activity that occurs first. In essence, I believe consciousness is nothing more than a side-effect that we can utilise.
And then some people argue from quantum mechanics that consciousness causes wavecollapses.
Can you provide a link? I'd be interested to see what this is all about.
So I think you can make a good argument for idealism nowadays.
I'm unconvinced. It all seems like whackjob stuff to me
The four causes, act/potency distinction, essence/existence distinction... unmoved mover, uncaused cause, etc. Though I don't consider myself a hylomorphic dualist because it seems to me that it leads to epiphenomenalism.
Gee wizz. Surely you don't take that stuff too seriously? Everything Aristotle ever said lost relevance during the intellectual revolution... and then along came Darwin. I mean, you can't really be into that teleological stuff? >.<
I'm not sure what you mean here...
Mostly what I mean is... Let me put it this way:
I'm guessing you're young-ish (around 20), or at the very least relatively new to all this philosophy stuff. I know what it's like, as I was there not so long ago. You get swamped with all these intriguing, thought-provoking ideas and you yourself become idealogical. While you're immersed in all this stuff, it's easy to get sucked in and lose sight of the real world that's staring you in the face.
Throughout history a lot of people have philosophised about things, then science has advanced and topics which were once part of philosophy become matters of fact/fiction through epistemological findings (a lot of Aristotle's work applies here). Some things will stay in the realm of metaphysics (e.g. "does God exist?"), but anything confined to this realm is infallible by nature and therefore useless in practicality and, through reason, should not be held to belief, but rather left to interesting discussion. (And because you seem interested in the ancient Greeks, you should be a big fan of reason!!)
Arguments like Descartes' evil demon are useful for philosophical purposes, but at the end of the day do not provide us with any useful guidance of information when you leave the classroom and get out into the real world. To say "I believe in this radical theory of mind" makes you sound like a crazy person who is out of touch with reality. It is much more reasonable to say "I find this radical theory of mind to be very compelling and worthy of discussion for philosophical purposes".
When it comes down to it, in my opinion your believing in a total mental existence is just about as useful as claiming that the giant spaghetti monster in the sky rules over us with a benevolent hand. And that applies not only to the real world, but also to philosophical discussion. Maybe I'm biased though because I'm a devout materialist
(at least, when it comes to this sort of philosophical stuff; let's keep religion separate from these discussions).
I briefly read the most of your debate. I really don't have time to go through it all thoroughly, and for this I apologise that I cannot do it full justice. Anyway, I already came across a number of problems with your argument that turned me off. Btw I don't want to sound like I'm bashing you, but I'm probably going to come off a bit blunt. Don't take it too personally
. Use my feedback as a way to strengthen your own arguments. (Also your opponent may have mentioned all of these things; I didn't read their stuff so I don't know).
Obviously my biggest problem is with your possible universe that is only mental. To me this suggestion is completely ludicrous and I think you do a poor job of backing it up. For example, one reason you use to defend it is "(ii) It’s quite conceivable." Surely you can see that this sentence is so useless it wouldn't swing in any argument. Pretty much anything is conceivable. It's conceivable that Hitler was actually God doing his bidding. Now we're all going to hell because we forced him to commit suicide.
An argument that you make against property dualism is "... this leads to major problems of epiphenomenalism and no free will". While I agree that epiphenomenalism is a problem, you simply can't say "I don't like it therefore this theory is false". This is exactly what you did and it is a horrendous fallacy. Also free will is for chumps
Immediately following this you talk about properties of things, and come up with an argument roughly along these lines:
P1) Properties are abstractions of substances and cannot sensically be talked about as substances in themselves.
P2) We can talk about the mind as a substance in itself.
C1) Therefore the mind is not a property of a substance, but a substance in itself.
This argument is purely semantics, and is a consequence of historical views shaping our language. You need to be very careful when making an argument like this (I would recommend avoiding such reasoning entirely), because language is a fragile thing. Basically, the only reason we can talk about the mind as a thing in itself is because of the way our language treats the word "mind". Technically one could argue that using the word "mind" in this way is false and nonsensical. (Also, I can conceive of a world in which we use the word "mind" properly, and it cannot be talked about as a substance in itself, therefore your argument fails
).
BTW I am not arguing for property dualism, just pointing out your flawed reasoning.
I found it interesting that you bothered with an explanation for your third premiss that mind interacts with reality. This is true of almost every theory of mind... (I can't think of any theories off the top of my head that would deny this).
You talk about "explanatory power", but only give one lame example of how your idealism has the power to explain anything (other than falsely claiming it can explain the existence of mind better than materialism can). You say it's compatible with science, but this is nothing more than stating the blatant obvious, and should be the same for every theory because to deny what we can consistently prove with our own senses is retarded.
While I'm on it, I'll give quick mention of Occam's Razor. I know this is a popular thing in philosophical circles, but I would personally encourage you to abandon the idea entirely, as I have long since done. While Occam's Razor might sound useful, in practicality all it does is encourage people to go against everything we have learnt from history. Once upon a time genetics & evolutionary theory was simple, now we realise it's extremely complex. Once upon a time physics was simple (think Aristotle, or even Newton), now we know it's extremely complex. Once upon a time gender identity was simple (male or female), now we have at least 10 different classifications for people who identify with all sorts of weird things. My point is, nothing is ever simple. It completely baffles me that philosophers still hold onto this outdated and un-useful concept which doesn't aid explanation, nor is consistent with everything humans have worked so hard to learn. Most of the time the world is complex! I guess that this Occam dude was too simple-minded to realise this (ahahaha I'm so funny).
Anyway those are my words of wisdom after years of studying philosophy and even more years of reflecting on things since.
btw I'm a massive fan of John Locke, David Hume, and Spinoza (to name but a few). I don't necessarily agree with most of what they say, but I find it super interesting to read their stuff. Also these days my favourite topic of thought is existentialism (which is way left of centre of the stuff you seem to be interested in at the moment).
