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Metaphysics

Very simple to breakdown metaphysics in theory is the study telekinesis, telepathy, remote viewing, strengthening, the mind which empowers the body, even healing others with the mind and hands. I have always been curious on how to increase my mind power and wonder all the time how humans have the power to do some of the most amazing things. Such as people having a deadly illness then all of sudden becoming cured, or someone lifting up a car to save another's life. Have you ever had a time where you thought you moved an object, or read someone's mind etc? We all at one time have done this we just do not understand how the mind works yet. I think man is a very powerful creature considering we can hunt, eat, think, run, walk, build, invent, produce, mate and the list goes on but what if we could increase our IQs or practice with our minds to become more enhanced mentally rather then physically imagine what we could accomplish. Honestly in theory I think we all have these gifts I just think some know how to use them better then others. I also think that slowly humans are evolutionizing. I think children are smarter, faster, more coordinated with there mind. My sons can see ghost they have knowledge's I have never taught them before. What it boils down to is that you can become smarter or should I say wiser by opening up your mind. Metaphysics does also include the ability to see ghost and even learn how to talk with them so its a very important part of our organization and over time most people should develop these abilities.

Rick-AngelOfThyNight

Metaphysics

Metaphysics is the study of the power of the mind, beyond the physical world.
The Metaphysics of Philosophers view the cosmology of the universe or how things came to be.
Metaphysics encompasses space-time relationships.
Metaphysics is used in order to overcome limited thinking and for personal growth.
Metaphysics is the study of Eastern Philosophies, Western Philosophies, Kabalistic Studies, Earth religions, Wicca and the Grail Mysteries.
Metaphysics recognizes that Spiritual Growth and Personal Growth go together.
Metaphysics realizes that you have Free Will so you must take personal responsibility for your actions.
Metaphysics believe that: "As you believe in your heart so are you." Napoleon Hill stated; "What so ever the mind of man can conceive and believe he will achieve."
Metaphysics believes that what you send out (energy) comes back to you.
Metaphysics believe that ill health is not a punishment but a part of Life's experience.
Metaphysics believe that everything has a consciousness and both a positive and negative energy and is bound by Universal Law.

Metaphysics
...metaphysics...has for centuries spoiled many a sound mind. -- Immanual Kant

Metaphysics is a branch of philosophy consisting of ontology and cosmology. In the 'weak' sense, metaphysics is used loosely to refer to New Age and non-empirical notions such as 'energy' (chi, prana) being balanced, harmonized, tuned, aligned, unblocked, etc. Although 'metaphysics' in the weak sense is the most common in the Skeptic's Dictionary, here we are concerned with 'metaphysics' in the strong sense.

The term 'metaphysics' is often used to entail ideas and theories as to what kinds of beings are real, the nature of those beings and of the concepts and language used to think and speak or write about those beings. For example, a theory of mind would be a metaphysical theory concerned with mental phenomena and related concepts such as perception, idea, consciousness, memory, intention, motive, reasoning, etc.

However, typically, 'metaphysics' refers to broad theories of reality, such as materialism and dualism, and to broad issues regarding the nature of reality.

Why is there something rather than nothing? Is there free will or is every action determined by causes? Was the universe created or has it always existed? Are there spiritual beings? Is there life after death? What is the nature of the universe, of substance, causality, etc.? These are all metaphysical questions.

Most philosophers would agree that metaphysical claims are not scientific and that contradictory metaphysical positions cannot be tested empirically to determine which is false. For example, materialism and dualism are contradictory but both theories are coherent and consistent with experience, and there is no empirical event that could falsify either theory.

Modern philosophy is often said to begin with Descartes, when the focus of philosophy turned to epistemological questions, i.e., questions regarding the origins, nature, and limits of knowledge. Metaphysical speculation about kinds of realities, which at one time dominated Western philosophy, has gradually given way to careful analyses of what can reasonably be posited about reality given what we know about how we come to experience reality and how we come to generate ideas about reality.

Philosophers give various reasons for preferring one metaphysical belief to another. One thinks one's own theory is more coherent than a rival theory, or that one's own belief has more explanatory power or requires fewer assumptions. Some argue that their metaphysical beliefs fit better with what is known from other disciplines such as science, history, or psychology. Some criticize rival theories for being too farfetched: possible but implausible.

Some defend their metaphysical beliefs by appealing to the consequences of belief, e.g., it gives hope for an afterlife or meaning to existence. Others maintain that such considerations are irrelevant to the truth of the claims, and indicate the belief is based more on desire than good logical reasons.

Since coherent metaphysical beliefs cannot be refuted it is sometimes maintained that philosophers adhere to their metaphysical theories more out of personal disposition and temperament than evidence and proof.

Some consider metaphysics to represent what is highest in human nature, the drive to know and understand the nature of the universe in which we find ourselves while we move towards our inevitable end. Others consider metaphysics, specifically speculative metaphysics about non-empirical and transcendent realities, to be, more or less, bunk. Perhaps Kant was correct when he said that although we can never hope to answer our metaphysical questions, we can't help asking them anyway.

Mind Games

NEW YORK, April 28, 2002

(CBS) You don't need psychic powers to know there's a passion for the paranormal these days. CBS News Sunday Morning Correspondent Rita Braver reports.

Just go to the movies, or turn on the TV and you can soon be "Crossing Over With John Edward," who claims to be able to talk to the dead.

Pick up your phone to dial a psychic, walk down any city street, or come with us to a nondescript office building in Carlsbad, Calif., the home of Transdimensional Systems, founded by Prudence Calabrese.

How does she describe the process that they do in her company?

"It's a very intuitive process where you use just your mind to access anything, any time, any place, anywhere."

It is called remote viewing.

Calabrese claims that she and her team of remote viewers can intuit past and future events. They invited us to give them a little test.

The way this works: Braver wrote down a description of an event. The people at Transdimensional Systems had no idea what it was but they had to view the event and then tell Braver what it was. The event Braver chose was the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.

The men did the remote viewing, listening to special meditation music through their CD headsets. At the end of the session, it was the job of Prudence Calabrese and the other woman to analyze what the men described.

Calabese says Wall Street uses her services to forecast economic trends. She says she has helped police investigate murder cases. And, most astonishing of all, she says that four years ago, one of her remote viewers predicted the Sept. 11 terrorist attack.

Sunday Morning could not verify that claim. But Calabrese says she is now helping the FBI by "looking at future terror attacks, on U.S. soil and U.S. interests abroad." She says the call from the Feds came after she and her team predicted Washington's brush with anthrax.

FBI spokesman told Sunday Morning they could find no record of any official contacts with her, but that it is possible that she talked with an agent. And the government has acknowledged using remote viewers, like Calabrese, in the past.

Starting during the Cold War, in the mid-'70s, the Defense Intelligence Agency and the CIA ran a program that came to be known as Stargate. And forget what the movies say about those with a special psychic gift. The government believed anyone could become a remote viewer.

That's how Army Maj. Paul Smith, now retired, ended up spending seven years in Stargate. He says his only qualification was an open mind.

He recalls, "They said, 'Well, basically, we want you to be a psychic spy.' And I said, 'Where do I sign?'"

For his remote viewing, he got medals for distinguished service.

Smith says the U.S. started remote viewing after intelligence reports that the Russians were doing it.

After 20 years and $20 million, the CIA dropped the program in 1995, concluding that Stargate "has not been shown to have any value in intelligence operations." But Smith and other Stargate veterans did have many successes: identifying Russian spies, describing a location where U.S. hostages were being held in the Middle East, and particularly with helping to catch drug dealers.

"About 30 percent of the time," says Smith, "our information was declared to be useful and successful."

Smith says that in 1987, he had a remote viewing experience that, sadly, came true. About 50 hours before it happened, he sketched out the incident when the USS Stark was hit by a missile and the Iraqis said they hit it by accident.

Paul Kurtz, a retired philosophy professor, pooh-poohs all psychic claims. He is so upset by the public's growing belief in psychic powers that he founded the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims Of the Paranormal (CSICOP). Based in Buffalo, N.Y., the organization includes a roster of top scientists and publishes Skeptical Inquirer Magazine.

And whether you believe in psychic phenomena or not, you might be interested to know that investigation into the paranormal is being conducted at a major university medical school, on the campus of the University of Virginia.

Dr. Bruce Greyson is a psychiatrist and chairman of the Virginia program. Researchers there are studying reports of past lives, near-death experiences, and even ghosts.

Case in point: The ghost of a man and his dog, allegedly seen at a house near the university by a 3-year-old girl, whom Dr. Greyson (for privacy reasons) could not identify.

They carefully took down everything the child said� Some of the neighbors who had lived in that area for generations said it sounded like the man who had built that house more than 100 years ago. At that point, the family came forward.

Says Dr. Greyson, "I think it's a mistake to think of these experiences as being crazy, because they are very common and they're experiences that suggest that the current ways that we think about mind and body are too limited."

But professional skeptic Paul Kurtz says the answers do not lie in the paranormal realm.

"The term 'paranormal'�or 'psychic' [means] that you cannot find a formal scientific explanation," he says. "So I'm unwilling to give up on that. I think you ought to keep looking to find a normal explanation."

And remember our own tests, on whether Calabrese's team could remote view the assassination of Abraham Lincoln without knowing what Braver had written down? Did they have any idea what it was that they were trying to see during the process?

Said one of the men, "I'm gonna have to put my money on that there's at least one subject involved in�in an upsetting place."

And how did Prudence Calabrese interpret it?

"So, I would have to say that there's probably someone here who isn't in the best physical state and perhaps could be dead. Somebody may be trying to run away from something � quick movement." Both men "described the exact same kind of energetics, something hitting, something slamming."

No, they didn't identify the precise scene. But were they close? You'll have to psych that out for yourself.

� MMII, CBS Worldwide Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Metaphysics The branch of philosophy that investigates the ultimate nature of reality.

Our original reaction as human beings - as non-philosophical human beings, that is - would be to say that we just know what is real and what is not. As you will find out in the next lecture, 'knowing' is also something we cannot take for granted. If 'to know' means what it is supposed to mean, then, we will need rigorous criteria for THAT too - for what constitutes knowledge. Let's get back to what is real. Should we assume that the ral is what is accessible to our senses? But, wait a minute: What about the thoughts in your head? Aren't they 'real'? Are those thoughts accessible to your senses - can you see, hear, or touch your thoughts? If a brain surgeon performed probing brain surgery, without total anesthesia, he or she could see something about the chemistry of your brain, of course; but, would THAT be your thoughts? Actually, the doctor does not even see, touch, or smell the chemistry either - at least, not the chemical equations that describe the chemical events that are taking place in your brain at any given moment.

Or, consider this example: Isn't the US Constitution real? Well, it must be. But is the US Constitution something that is accessible to your senses? Your initial reaction right be to say that, indeed, there is a written document that was signed by the framers of the constitution, etc... But, what if it were burned? Well, you might say, there will still be copies of the constitution somewhere. What if all the copies, everywhere, were destroyed by some unforeseen and massive-scale catastrophe? Wouldn't the US Constitution still be real? Even though you don't see it anywhere? Of course, people would still be thinking about it. So, we are back to thoughts. The point remains that, whatever real means, real is not just what is accessible to us through our senses. There are real things that are NOT accessible to us through our senses.

Besides, there are impressions given to us by our senses which are NOT real as we all can tell: For instance, when I look at myself in the mirror, I see my image 'behind' the glass. Is this real? Is there space exending behind the glass? But, I clearly see myself [well, my reflection] occupying space, as it were. You can think of many other examples: For instance, do sticks really bend when they immersed into water? They certainly look as if they were bent?

What about colors? Dim the light and your sesk does not look to be the same color anymore. What happened? Did the color change? Many students answer this by saying that the desk is still, say, brown, but it does not look that way anymore under dimmer lights. Well, think about it. Is there a REAL color of the table? Are you sure? Why should we call the brown color the real color? Why should reality depend on specific conditions - the real color is visible only when the ambient light is specifically this or that? Let's say that the carpenter made this table in the dark: is the real color of the table, then, the color which the table has in the dark? Or was the carpenter wrong about what he thought the real color of the table was? This doesn't work, as you can see. Colors are what is called in philosophy 'secondary qualities.' These qualities are not in the things themselves. To be sure, something in the thing must be producing our impressions of colors, etc., but the color is produced by the joint operation of that something and many other things - including our eye retinas, given the way human eyes are by nature. Think of taste. We say that sugar is sweet but this is inaccurate - can you now tell why? Here is an easier example: If I put my hand in the fire I experience pain. Should I then say that the 'pain' is in the fire?

What about science? Can science help out with a more commonsense response to the question 'what is real'? What sciece have to say about the nature of matter? What is the matter of the desk, for instance? Science used to say that matter is divisible down to ultimate, in-themselves indivisible, components, the atoms. Today, the scientific view is more complex - speaking of particles and energy quanta. The bottom line is this: You don't see the atoms, or the particles, or the energy, or the waves, or the electromagnetic impulses. So, science also explains what you observe BY MEANS of what you do NOT observe.

Criteria � What is Real? Can we agree on any criteria about what is real? This is not so easy. We should really do this in class - the criteria should emerge from our discussion of questions like 'are objects in my dreams real?' Here are criteria we are likely to come up with:

a) What is real must be INDEPENDENT of any one mind perceiving it. Real things are there whether anyone can perceive them or think about them or not, right? This sounds reasonable. As we will see, there is at least one major school of metaphysics - idealism - that denies this criterion or reality. So, our criteria are not acceptable by all theories. We can, and should, keep thinking about these criteria.

b) Another criterion is this: Real things must be INTERSUBJECTIVELY VERIFIABLE: more than one individuals must be able to tell that something is real. At this point, students usually start thinking 'what about my thoughts, or my feelings? Aren't they real? And yet, no one else can verify them.' Well, are you sure? What is true about this is that your emotions are private. Your thoughts are not private, as thoughts. I am not talking about the chemical reactions on your brain that go together with your thoughts - those are obviously transpiring on your brain and on your brain only. But the content of your thoughts is something you can - and do - share. We can talk about your thoughts; you can try to convince us that you are right and we can try to convince you that you are wrong. What about the emotions and feelings? Only you can verify that you have or do not have them, but you can still tell us that you do or do not have such and such feelings - so, in this sense, there is here inter-subjective verifiability. This looks like a good criterion of reality, doesn't it? If something is real, more than one minds must be able to attest to its reality.

c) PERMANENCE. Real things must last long enough to register. This becomes tricky when you start wondering how long should long enough be, but you should agree that a real thing can register on the radar of a human being's perception of what is real.

d) CONSISTENCY with other beliefs. If something doesn't fit with other beliefs we have about real things, then, this one thing seems odd. That's why very strange phenomena - if we ever experience them - make us wonder if they are real.

f) You can think of other criteria. Criteria, though, might be controversial, as I said above. Is pleasure a criterion? Do I know that something is real if it hurts to touch, for instance? This is not clear. I could be hallucinating. Here we are edging toward the next topic - philosophy of knowledge or epistemology. What about practicability? Should we say that all practically helpful/useful things are real? This is not clear at all, but there are theories that accept it as a basic criterion of what is real.

Primary / Secondary Qualities: See the discussion of colors above. What are primary qualities, then? Extension is a primary quality. Unlike color or taste, everything that is must occupy some space - no matter how small in scale that space might be. [Of course, there are religious and other kinds of beliefs about the existence of beings, like angels, who are said not to be immaterial - not occupying any space. But, notice that even for a religion that believes in angels, such beings are considered supernatural.]

Developing our natural Metaphysical Abilities

"This is for me a problematic question simply because I could be very glib and say, 'Well, everyone's got the same natural abilities, which is to embrace all that is, to know all that is, and to be all that is.' That would then encompass all possible metaphysical activities. But I do not think that is the answer you are looking for. What you're asking for is, 'What did I design for myself for this lifetime and what is most easily accessible?' Sort of like, 'Will I ever learn to play the violin? Or do I have a natural propensity for learning Italian?' And in that area I would say that the easiest way to look at that is as modes of perception. That each person has stylistic ways of obtaining information, and that is really all we are talking about there in terms of metaphysical gifts. How one obtains, processes, and transmits information and energy. Some people are very suited, in their basic makeup, to being a voice channel, to being an automatic writer, or to being a psychic, or a palm reader, or an aura reader, or a healer, or a vision questor or whatever it is. And what each of these sorts of things has underlying it is what bandwidth, what sensate bandwidth information comes in as. Some people are visionary, they see things visually, some people are auditory, they actually hear things. Some people receive impressions, some people receive words. Some people receive symbols. Some people are prone to receive energy of particular frequencies and transmit what others might call 'useful' information, others receive and transmit energy in non-information form but in an energetic form. Some folk receive information in this symbolic form that can be useful in transmitting symbols, in this way providing guidance. Some people are sensitive to astral form, some people are sensitive to non-astral form.

It all has to do with what frequencies you are most sensitive to and most easily tuned to. I think this is best looked at as a self-diagnosis. You will find this frustrating but I think self-discovery is very very useful in this way. Stop and think about the way your own mind works. When you go to remember something...do you see the event in your minds eye? Are you good at recognizing and describing, holding in your mind's eye and being able to say it looked like such and such? The car was white, the sky was blue, he had on a red shirt....with ducks on it! Or do you instead have a memory of what was said? Who, what, when? How it felt. 'It felt as if he were angry and I remember being upset. And there was a general chill to the situation.' Or do you remember the number of people involved, remember that it reminded them of 'a ship floating on the sea, or whatever', or people who remember emotional content, or people who remember visual content, or people who remember auditory content. There are also people who remember just the way it feels, just the way it seemed. What I mean by that is there's a sort of impression that holds lots of information but they're not very good at the details, neither the visual details, nor the auditory details, nor the emotional details, but they have a big picture that is not visual, it is impressionary. Everyone has a little bit of all of those. But every one also has a favorite modality. That modality gives you the first clue to the way your gifts work. Often times we come across someone who desperately wants to be able to do....automatic writing, but they don't relate very well to words. And so when they do some automatic writing, it is somewhat what you would call stilted, because that is really not their major modality. It is not that they can't do it. Someone who gets impressions will do a magnificent job with what you call psychometry. Someone who can pick up an object and what they will feel is the full impression of what went on with this object. Someone who feels emotions, may when handed an object just feel what the person who wore it felt but not have any detail about what the cause of it was. Someone does words may not be any good at psychometry, but may be an excellent channel. Someone who does pictures will probably not be real red hot as a voice channel but may be an excellent reader of auras or may receive pictures almost like moving pictures when they do psychic readings.

So the first thing is to discover your modality. The next is to stop and think about your relationship to the world in terms of energy. What we mean here is.... when you walk into a room that is empty, what are you most likely to, not visually noticing, talking about vibrationally noticing, about the room? Are you feeling the content, i.e., the room as it exists right now and how the objects in the room affect the energy in the room as it is right now? How the people, if there were people there, how the people are arranged in the room affects the energy in the room. Or do you notice that? Do you notice in fact, a sense of it still being inhabited? Do you sense its past? Its emotional content or the events that have happened? Do you just have a feel about the room? The reason why I ask that is that gives you a good sense if you can pinpoint the way you relate to energy that comes to you. If you're relating to the room itself, you're relating to the energy in the objects themselves and how they interact and in that case being able to do hands on healing will work quite well because you're relating to the object and the objects of the body and the way they relate to one another. You would also be good at this thing called Feng Shui, which is the arrangement of objects in a room for the most peaceful or whatever kind of energy.

The person who feels what has gone on in a room is once again feeling psychic energy and is probably much more connected with astral. David here, someone who makes contact with those who have passed on, either those who are wandering about lost or those who aren't but want to make contact with somebody else, tend to be very sensitive to the pasts of the room.

Someone who just has a sensation about the room, this is a comfortable room, this is not a comfortable room, this is a cold room, this is a place I don't belong kind of room this room makes me uncomfortable, this room is such a warm and wonderful room I'd like to spend forever in it, is relating to the whole energy of the room, both the objects and the past and the whole ethic form and they make excellent channel because they're reaching beyond the astral in to the everything and they're open to everything.

Then I would say to you look at how you relate to the outer world and the way you use your energy. Do you desire energy to be information, to be healing, to be teacher, to be guiding, counseling?

Each one of those produces, comes from, a different style of broadcasting of energy. Someone who wishes to inform, who wishes to spread knowledge, uses energy differently than someone who wishes to heal, and someone who wishes to counsel, to bring healing to the soul, than someone who wishes to teach or someone wishes to guide. Once you find your mix of modalities, then it is a question of merely opening each of those modalities as wide as possible rather than running around being pissed that, 'If only I were visual I could paint pictures of angels!' You, you're not visual, you're not going to paint pictures of angels. And that's just the way it is. Find your modalities, work with them, naturally it will all blossom."

- Channeled information, compliments of Coyote

Theories of Metaphysics

Materialism

According to materialism, only material objects are real. Nothing can be real if it is not material. Notice that 'material' does not mean visible, audible, detectable or in any way necessarily aceessible through the senses. Indeed, there are material objects too small for the naked eye; we know that there are even material objects that are too small even for the most powerful microscope yet invented. Also, notice this: We said that science deals with unobserved real entities - atoms, particles, energy quanta, electromagnetic waves: such things are not immaterial, even though we cannot ever observe them. Can you see how this is the case?

Problems with Materialism: Materialism is perhaps the most commonsensical theory but it too has problems. a) Materialism has difficulties explaining the operations of the mind. For a materialist, all mental operations must be electrochemical events and nothing but! But, when I see a picture, the material picture - the material object out there - is somehow represented in my mind. How? Obviously, the material picture is not inside my brain. For the materialist, the representation of the picture in my brain is a chain of electrochemical events - material substances interacting, colliding, being chemically transformed, and so on. So, my ideas - perceptions and thoughts - are electrochemical events and nothing but! Every idea, for the materialist, is just an electrochemical event - and this is true of all ideas, so every idea is exactly like every other idea. All of a sudden, this does not sound all that commonsensical. How do we get from uniform electrochemical events to the whole variety of percpetions and thoughts I have in my brain? b) A second problem is this: How can a materialist account for human freedom? Human beings believe - and this is common sense - that they are free to choose what to do. Do this exercise yourself: see if you can tell why this is a problem for materialism. For materialist philsophy, events are determined by other preceding events. The fact that I have an idea in my mind - the idea that I am free to choose - is an electrochemical event; I can trace the other, antecedent, events that preceded and caused this event. So, where is the freedom? It is true that I have this idea in my head, but I do not really choose to have this idea. How would I choose anyway? Wouldn't that prior choice also have to be an electrochemical event which is also caused by an other prior electrochemical event, and so on and so on? [Of course, there are materialists who simply accept that all is determined, there is no freedom, and they find no problem with that. Others are more sophisticated - but save your appetite for when we discuss freedom later in the course. The point is that, on this issue of freedom, materialism seems to be going against common sense.]

Dualism

Dualism is the theory of reality that claims that there are two kinds of real things: material things [bodies and natural objects], and certain immaterial things [minds.] Notice here, right away, that the dualists' 'mind' is not the same as the material brain - the organ on which certain electrochemical events take place. The mind is non-material. It must have something to do with the material brain but it is NOT itself material - it cannot be touched, seen, smelled, observed or sensed in any way. I can infer that it exists logically. It is immaterial. When you say that, upon dying, the body perishes but the soul or spirit or mind or whatever survives, you are most likely to be a dualist: you are saying that real things are not necessarily material. There are real things - minds, souls, spirits, or whatever - that are NOT material. [So, if you are thinking that, after death, you survive in a material form, you are not a dualist; it is also difficult to see WHAT theory you are holding - what is that thing that survives?]]

Dualism is good when it comes to explaining certain phenomena we are all familiar with - freedom of choice, mind-over-body discipline, and so on. It is, however, less commonsense than materialism - this does not mean that it is worse or better, just less commonsensical; so, it is very interesting when, in class, most people turn out to be dualists in spite of their insistence that they are down-to-earth, commonsense, practical idividuals.

Problems with Dualism: The main problem for dualism is this: How do the material and immaterial things [the bodies and the minds] interact with one another? Think about this: Material things are, necessarily, extended things - they occupy space, no matter how tiny that space is; and nothing else can occupy that exact same space. So, how and where does the immaterial mind come into the material brain? Can there be a place where they touch? But, remember, the immaterial mind is not in space - it cannot be in space, or, then, it would be material. Or, could it be that the material brain somehow has a non-material zone in which it interacts with the immaterial mind. But, then, the brain itself - the material brain - would not be altogether material - and this is illogical! Could there be something that is BOTH material and immaterial? This seems to be required by dualism. But, in that case, we are saying that there is something that both does and does not occupy space - this does not sound logical either. Or, should we say that there are things that are partly material and partly immaterial? But, then, we are back to the same problem all over again: How and where do the material and immaterial parts connect? Many philosophers prefer another solution: mind and body are identical. Well, in that case, what's the difference? Why speak of mind and body as if they were separate? Well, one possible response is this: Mind and body are two ways of speaking about the same thing. It makes better sense - we can better explain phenomena, for instance - if we use sometimes the one and sometimes the other word. I am leaving it to you, and to our class discussions, whether this is a satisfactory disposition of the interaction problem.

Idealism

According to idealism, the only real things are ideas and the non-material minds that 'have' those ideas. This goes against common sense. The theory has been popular with many philosophers, but it is the one theory students resist and find implausible. Those who are poetic or artistic, sometimes, like the theory but it is not clear that they realize that this is a THEORY of what is real that we are talking about. As Russell says in one of your readings, what is fascinating about this theory is that, strange though it sounds, it can go on and on and explain even everyday life phenomena.

Problems with Idealism: Idealism appears to misunderstand what we mean when we say that we have an idea of something - for instance, a table. It is true that I cannot possibly perceive or think about the table unless I form an idea of this table. But, the idea is OF the table - we cannot say that the table is the idea. [There are other versions of idealism that are more sophisticated, but we do not study them in this course.] So, it seems that idealism confuses physical objects with the means through which we perceive them: we perceive objects BY MEANS of ideas.

Idealism faces obvious problems and embarrassments but you will be surprised how idealists are able to respond to challenges. For instance, idealism takes as a criterion of reality that real things are dependent on the mind that perceives or thinks about them. This sounds odd. Does it mean that the table is not there, is not real anymore, when there is no one around to perceive it, and when no one is thinking about it at the moment? This would have to follow from idealist premises. If only ideas and minds are real, then there is no real table when the table has no ideas of it being formed! Here is the answer idealists like Bishop Berkeley have given to this: There is nothing that does not have ideas of it being formed all the time: God has all the ideas in 'his' mind; so, there are always ideas of all things that are being formed - by the divine mind. Or, God is constantly 'obsefving' - so, forming ideas - of everything.

Another problem has to do with the criterion we put down above - the criterion of consistency: How is it we can all talk about the same table when our ideas are real for each one of us individually? The idealist answer to this is that our minds are pre-programmed - by God, let's say - so that this table right here and now had been inserted in both your and my mind-program for all eternity.

Let us review the problems faced by dualism: How is the interaction between mind and body possible?

One answer is called: Parallelism - bodies and minds - both real - are parallel; they do not interact. Each one carries 'epiphenomenal' signs that reflect or correspond to actions of the other. What do you think of this solution?

A related solution is called: Pre-established Harmony. Mind and body are indeed separate, but each one is so made, or is so by its nature, that they 'go together' as if they were directly interacting.'

Here is another attempted solution: Inadequate Concept of Causality - maybe our ways of thinking about cause and effect are insufficient when it comes to this problem - the problem of how immaterial mind causes effects in the material brain.

The solution I offered you earlier - the one that is popular - is the Identity Solution. Mind and body are just identical. a) Either the one is the 'epiphenomenon' [side effect, byproduct] of the other; b) or they are just two different words for the same thing - words we choose to better explain phenomena depending on what we are trying to describe and explain.

Electronic text of Descartes� Meditations