[antiihero]

I'm just curious to see what various individuals' views on monism and dualism are, (from a psychological and philosophical point of view). Are you either? Or do you believe in something that rejects both concepts. Just a quick recap...

Monism- states that mind and body are both aspects of the same reality, in other words, one cannot exist without the other.

Dualism- states that the mind and body are each separate realities in their own rights.

I personally believe that the mind, body, and reality itself are all separate entities, and that reality is neither the physical or metaphysical, it is in itself a construct. Whereas the other two theories state that reality "is" the mind or body, or both, I argue that reality is neither.

And please, keep this civil, and serious, if at all possible...

[Xyz]

This seems borderline religious.. It's not making a high amount of sense to me..

The mind and body are what they are. The body is a collection of cells.. and the mind is.. well it's the mind, something not fully understood yet.

So I guess I'm a Dualist? But I don't see what you mean by "separate realities", there's only one reality the way I see things, and everything exists within it.

[antiihero]

Try not to think about it religiously, because I don't want that to be an issue. Replace "reality" with state. For example, a schizophrenic person may hear or see things that do not really "exist" to us. But what is more of a "true" reality to that person, the individual's mind, or the world we think they should accept? Monism would say that their reality is one in the same, and the things they hear and/or see are real. Dualism would state that what that person thinks and what is our physical world are two separate states, and the individual can accept both, one or the other, or neither.

[Monte314]

Dualist, of course.

This means that I must deal with the Mind&Body Problem. But as has been said:

What is mind? No matter.
What is matter? Never mind.

[Chameleon]

My conscious is part of THE reality or mass conscious.

My body is here to collect energy and protect my mind in this reality.

My mind is the focus/ground that traps/translates THE reality of my conscious to this subjective reality. Through dream subjective becomes objective in a translatable process to further collect data from experiments; that of conscious fathoms and wish to play out among the physical world we know.

You will find in the end that a single is a whole and the whole is the single; for one bleeds to the other and splashes back in a master-slave unity of existence.

Simple

[rbc]

The mind is an emergent property of the body, so cannot exist without it. The body, however, can exist without the mind -- that's precisely what "brain-dead" means.

[antiihero]

The body can't "really" exist without the mind though. It becomes immobile, unable to react or respond to this reality. The mind though, cannot be proven to not exist without the body. Unless we can tell what someone is thinking, or even if they are simply thinking, while being in a "brain dead" state, then there is no way to disprove or prove either theory.

[DeaconSyre]

To me there is no difference between the mind the body and reality.

The schizophrenic example for instance to me is that their body is causing the erroneous inputs to their senses and their mind (which is really just a specific subset of the body) isn't aware of the problem. So their problem exists in our reality just as a problem with their body while from their perspective it could be interpreted as a different reality.

I find it interesting that so many smart people don't like the idea of being this giant chemical reaction and nothing more. It's like they're under appreciating the complexity that science supports.

Edit: So... monism then.

[antiihero]

Interesting. I don't think it's that smart people under appreciate the idea that we are all the result of a chemical reaction, but merely ask the question of where did that giant chemical reaction occur from?

Also, why is it that we dream if our mind, body, and reality coexist. I know most psychologists believe that is random brain stimulation, but how do we explain meaningful dreams?

[DeaconSyre]

	Originally Posted by antiihero To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	Interesting. I don't think it's that smart people under appreciate the idea that we are all the result of a chemical reaction, but merely ask the question of where did that giant chemical reaction occur from? Also, why is it that we dream if our mind, body, and reality coexist. I know most psychologists believe that is random brain stimulation, but how do we explain meaningful dreams?

To the first part: either we look at evolution or we're in a "turtles all the way down" argument which I don't get into. As for the evolution bit there aren't really that many holes anymore. We can create cells out of "nothing" which would eventually (with some luck) evolve into higher order species.

To the second part: I think meaningful dreams are your brain trying to turn sensory noise into images and then you think about those images and apply meaning. Dreams have no meaning inherently. (note: the word images describes whatever form your dreams take)

[antiihero]

Do you have any links or anything to the concept that we can create cells out of "nothing"? I'm not questioning it, I just find that extremely interesting, and I might want to rethink my original post on my belief. That truly is fascinating.

And for the dreaming bit, how about people who sleep with no noise, like individuals who sleep with ear muffs on? Again, just trying to be more informed.

[DeaconSyre]

	Originally Posted by antiihero To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	And for the dreaming bit, how about people who sleep with no noise, like individuals who sleep with ear muffs on? Again, just trying to be more informed.

Quick response while I get the link for the evolution argument.

Whoops. I forgot the noise argument is actually out of date (but for reference I was talking about
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not actual noise). The proper argument is that while you dream there's this piece of your brain that actually spawns a bunch of random signals that your brain tries to interpret. If you have a Netflix account you can watch the Nova on dreams "What are Dreams?" that'll tell you the exact piece and it's normal functions. I think it normally acts as a sensory input router so the signal noise argument isn't completely out of date.

---------- Post added 04-27-2011 at 11:54 PM ----------

Back to the big chemical mess conversation:

Here's the link for synthetic cells:
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.

As far as my understanding of it goes they made the DNA but not the cell structure and I don't know how hard making the cell would be but I think less so. However, I'm not a chemist/biologist so I don't actually know what would be "required" to make a living organism.

Obviously we're not done filling in all the holes from big-bang to sentient life but we know enough for me to not feel like I'm being lied to or (unintentionally) misled.

[Chameleon]

	Originally Posted by rbc To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	The mind is an emergent property of the body, so cannot exist without it. The body, however, can exist without the mind -- that's precisely what "brain-dead" means.

Precisely!! This is a great scientific movement towards a diffusion of conscience/mind and body/mind. Now we must ask, is it that the brain losses its ability to function and all memory is lost; or that the mind losses its ability to link a (theoretical) mass conscious into a conduit that is beyond the understanding of a flawed mind?

Imagination is key, to place a limitation upon the big picture is (well) human...sadly people will always be compelled to explain the inexplicable. I mean the world is flat, right? Or is it that the sun revolves around the earth? In the end it comes to believing what you believe in; if its wrong then you can cross that bridge when you get there. I could not begin to believe that people have seen the things I have seen; and i am definitely not passing out bus tickets into my 'greener grass.'
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*smiles, as he watches all the invisible strings dance in front of him; sowing 'what is' together with 'what isn't. He grabs one and follows it into the world of dreamy unknown.*

[BirdValiant]

Dualism is not supported by scientific evidence. Monism is. Dualism is an unnecessary hypothesis that can be cut off with Occam's razor, just like God.

[antiihero]

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Two interesting sites on this topic. Just figured I would post them for those interested.

[Kisai]

I'm a Neoplatonist/Gnostic. The body houses the mind, which interfaces with the spirit, which communicates haphazardly with the daemon.

I am not sure if all humans have daemons, however.

[nowt]

Monist duelist.

[True Rune]

Monist. The mind can't exist without a body. There are always exceptions, loopholes (resurrection), and out of the ordinary things(astral projection, NDE) .

[N0c7urn3]

Monist. In particular, I think the embodied cognition view has to be correct. Our cognitions are the way they are because of the way our perceptual and motor systems are, and the whole thing is a result of the way we have evolved.

Remove a section of the brain and the mind will alter. The mind is just an interaction of different brain 'components' (not really clear cut components) interacting with the rest of the body, which interacts as a whole with the external environment, which is going to include other minds as well.

It's difficult to fully appreciate how wonderfully intricate all the interactions are, and I think the natural tendency people have is just to lump all this unknown, misunderstood factors together into some non-descript 'mind' component and give it a magic quality of being separate from everything else. It does take some understanding of evolution (at the biological and genetic levels), neuroscience and sociology to see how the interplay might work. Current understanding is far from complete, however, but it does give a much better answer than simplistic dualism.

[BlackMita]

I'm a dualist who knows a monist.

[AngryGroceries]

This is philosophical\religious.

Neither; I think we are all the same thing. That one thing in common is being part of this universe. Our consciousness is of physical origin, but consciousness itself is not.

[DeepThought]

I guess I'm a monist and agree most strongly with what DeaconSyre and BirdValiant wrote. My own perspective is that there is reality and then there is the mind's limited interpretation of reality based on limited and flawed inputs. While we exist within our own minds trying to make sense of reality, reality itself is not all impacted upon our flawed interpretation except when we take action based on that flawed information.

[NixonKneivel]

There is a single unifying reality which lurks behind the reality we experience with our senses. Which implies limited understanding and things undescribable by science. Bodies become wormfeed, our real self lives on.

Does that make me a monist or a dualist? Maybe an objective monist?

[antiihero]

I'd say that makes you a monist who wants to believe in dualism.

Monism can be scientifically supported, so we accept it. Dualism makes more sense in philosophical terms.