B E R K E L E Y ' S M E T A P H Y S I C S
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New book by Peter B. Lloyd.
Published by Ursa Software Ltd in July 1999.
269 pp, paperback, £15.00, ISBN 1-902987-00-4.
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SYNOPSIS
About this book
I started writing this book almost two decades ago. Episodes of writing were squeezed into a busy life, while I was working full-time in software positions. Over a period of fifteen years, I had written barely a hundred pages. Over the past few years, however, I started becoming more active in this field - attending university lectures and seminars, going to conferences, taking part in internet discussions. During the winter of 1998/99, I was working away from home, in Luxembourg, and had some time in the evenings and weekends to finish off this book and the accompanying volume, Paranormal phenomena and Berkeley's metaphysics.About consciousness
The mind-body problem is worth studying for its own sake. It can plausibly be regarded as the most important problem in philosophy and the one that impinges most directly on the idea we hold of ourselves. In addition to its own worth, though, an inquiry into how the mind relates to the body may throw some light on a range of phenomena that are widely believed to exist, yet still stand outside the realm that has been recognised by systematic science: the mystical and the paranormal.The conscious mind and the physical brain have sometimes been conceived of as real things of fundamentally different kinds. Nowadays, however, there is a consensus amongst natural scientists that the mental world is reducible in some sense to the physical world; and that physical things are the only sort of thing that really exist. Indeed, it could be described as a powerful orthodoxy rather than as merely a consensus. Claims for the existence of non-physical entities are now normally dismissed out of hand by the scientific community. (Notwithstanding that belief in the supernatural is burgeoning outside the scientific community.)
I shall advance arguments against this conventional belief. And I shall offer further arguments for the opposite thesis that the mental world is the only one that really exists. The physical world, I shall claim, is a useful fiction that has been concocted out of the raw material of our mental life.
There are three main camps in this debate, and I will use the following broad terms to refer to them. Physicalism is the theory that only physical things exist; mentalism is the theory that only mental things exist; and dualism is the hybrid theory that both mental and physical things exist and that neither can be reduced to the other.
The main point of this book is to provide a firm, logical argument for mentalism, together with supporting arguments to make mentalism more plausible and palatable.
Structure of the book
This book is structured in the following way:- First, we look at a thought-experiment that
involves dissecting a conscious brain and considering the logical limits of
how a mind can be manipulated by manipulating the brain tissue, and
draw the conclusion that the mind cannot be in the brain in any
straightforward sense.
- Then, we take a
quick look at some of the current theories of consciousness that are in
circulation.
- We go through the central argument of mental monism, which
is based on the separation of language-games.
This is, in essence, the core part of Berkeley's argument for subjective
idealism, although he worded it differently. For example, he did not have the
Wittgensteinian term 'language-game'. We might call it a neo-Berkeleian argument,
but I think it is close enough to Berkeley's intentions to just call it plain
vanilla Berkeleianism.
- Finally, we go through some outlines of possible Berkeleian models of the mind, expressed in set-theoretic terminology.
Synopsis
Chapter 1: What are the Mind and Body?
This is a general introduction to the mind-body problem and the modern discipline of consciousness studies. It distinguishes realism and irrealism - about the physical world and the mental world. Solipsism is quickly rejected. The historical development of the mind-body problem is briefly sketched, leading to the genesis of the modern philosophy of mind. Physical monism, dualism, and mental monism are introduced. The philosophical significance of the terms 'dream' and 'hallucination' are considered: what does it mean to say that the world is a dream in God's mind?
Chapter 2: Theories of Mind
Having a position in space is an essential component of being physical. There are, however, good reasons for not attributing a definite place in space to the mind. So, we are led to believe that the mind cannot be physical. Here, I examine the naive the argument that: since I would not see your mind if I were to examine your brain, then your mind cannot be in your brain. And the various counter-arguments. I then give an account of the argument based on the excision of tissue from a conscious brain. There is also a survey of some of the current theories that purport to give an account of consciousness. None of them achieve their aim, however.
Chapter 3: Theories of Reality
This chapter is an introduction to metaphysics, especially the metaphysical theory of Berkeley. The infamous 'brain-in-a-vat' thought-experiment is introduced. Can we know anything about any kind of external world?
Chapter 4: Argument for Mental Monism
This is the key chapter: a rigorous argument for George Berkeley's mental monism, focusing on a Wittgensteinian analysis of language-games used to communicate about the mental and physical worlds. In the final section of this chapter, I take a step back from the issue of the mind-body problem itself, and ask: What is the point of philosophical argument? What is the status of an argument, such as that in this chapter, which seeks to change radically the reader's fundamental notion of what reality is. Can such arguments ever convince anybody? If so, how?
Chapter 5: Implications of Mental Monism
The logic of psycho-physical relationships. What are the basic constituents of the mental world? How do they hang together? What can we say about the physical correlates of the conscious mind?
Chapter 6: A Berkeleian Model of the Mind
This chapter works toward a formalism for articulating the nature of mind. Because the Berkeleian universe is a non-spatial domain, set theory is used to describe the structure of the mental world.
© Peter B. Lloyd, 1999, 2000. Last modified 23rd June 2000.
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