Hitoshi Kitada (hitoshi@kitada.com)
Mon, 13 Dec 1999 00:56:08 +0900
Dear Stephen,
Thanks for your opinions and information. I am not clear yet how the western
philosophy comes to the problem of dualism between mind and matter or its
negation by Leibniz. Let me make some elementary questions below.
Stephen Paul King <stephenk1@home.com>
Subject: [time 1111] Re: [time 1109] Monads (Re: [time 1105])
> Dear Hitoshi and Friends,
>
> :-) This is a very important issue and I apologize in advance for my
> dyslexic thinking and writing. :-)
>
> Hitoshi Kitada wrote:
> >
> > Dear Koichiro, Lance, Stephen, and friends,
> >
> > Koichiro Matsuno <kmatsuno@vos.nagaokaut.ac.jp> wrote:
> >
> > Subject: [time 1105] RE: [time 1101] Re: [time 1091] Intensities
> [SPK]
> > > > Lebnitz's thoughts would also tend toward the "nay" side of the scheme
> > > >also!
> [KM]
> > > It seems to me that Leibniz would lose nothing even if his monad is
> > > allowed to have a tiny window through which to see the outside nearby.
>
> I am afraid that the allowance of windows, however small, would bring
> into the model of Local Systems a problem that would ruin it
> consistency. We need to look carefully what it means to make
> observations!
Could you explain what inconsistencies arise in more detail?
>
> [HK]
> > I had received the same question from Izumi (Prof. Izumi Ojima at Research
> > Institute for Mathematical Sciences, Kyoto University) who is a member of
this
> > list now.
> >
> > Let me briefly introduce Prof. Izumi Ojima. He has been interested in
quantum
> > field theory as well as in time. As far as I understand his papers "Nature
vs.
> > Science" and "Nature vs. Science. II. -- Domains of Truth, Virtue and Beauty
as
> > Three Stages in History of Nature --" in Acta Institutionis Philosophiae et
> > Aestheticae, Vol. 10 (1992) and Vol. 11 (1993), his ideas on time seem to be
> > fundamentally the same as mine. Also he has an interesting understanding of
the
> > arrow of time in which Stephen might be interested.
>
> I am very interested in Prof. Ojima's thoughts about the arrow of time!
> :-) Does he have a web site and/or are his papers available as
> postscript files?
As far as I know he does not seem to have a web site nor postscript files. Prof.
Ojima, could you help Stephen in this regard?
>
> [HK]
> > Below my thought on the windowless monads:
> >
> > First a quotation of some items from Leibniz' "Monadology:"
> >
> > "1. The monad, of which we shall speak here, is nothing but a simple
substance
> > which enters into compounds; simple, that is to say, without parts.
> > 2. And there must be simple substances, because there are compounds; for the
> > compounds is nothing but a collection or aggregatum of simples.
> > 3. Now where there are no parts, there neither extension, nor shape, nor
> > divisibility is possible. And these monads are the true atoms of nature.
> > 4. Moreover, there is no fear of dissolution, and there is no conceivable
way in
> > which a simple substance could perish in the course of nature.
> > 5. For the same reason there is no way in which a simple substance could
begin
> > in the course of nature, since it cannot be formed by means of compounding.
> > 6. Thus it may be said that monads can only begin and end all at once, that
is
> > to say they can only begin by creation and end by annihilation, whereas what
is
> > compound begins or ends by parts.
> > 7. There is also no means of explaining how a monad can be altered or
changed
> > within itself by any other created thing, since it is impossible to displace
> > anything in it or to conceive of the possibility of any internal motion
being
> > started, directed, increased, or diminished within it, as can occur in
> > compounds, where change among the parts takes place. Monads have no windows,
by
> > which anything could come in or go out. Accidents cannot become detached, or
> > wander about outside substances, as the 'sensible species' of the
Scholastics
> > used to do. Thus neither substance nor accident can enter a monad from
without."
> > (From "Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Philosophical Writings," Translated by
Mary
> > Morris and G. H. Parkinson, Everyman, 1995.)
>
> I found this on-line URL that contains the above quote, except is is by
> a different translator:
>
> http://www.knuten.liu.se/~bjoch509/works/leibniz/monadology.txt
>
> > I think from these statements that, as a "simple existence"that is a true
atom
> > of nature, monad must not be sensible to the outside, and hence must be
> > windowless by definition.
>
> I would like to direct our attention to the following web site:
>
> http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win1997/entries/leibniz-mind/
I read this page.
The last paragraph:
"He seems to think that causal interaction between two beings requires the
transmission or transposition of the parts of those beings. But substances are
simple unextended entities which contain no parts. Thus, there is no way to
explain how one substance could influence another. Unfortunately, however, this
line of reasoning would seem to also rule out one case of inter-substantial
causation which Leibniz allows, viz., God's causal action on finite simple
substances. "
seems to be an explanation that Leibniz' monads do not have windows. And this
seems a natural consequence of Leibniz' definition of monads. I do not see
problems here insofar as we neglect the following two points raised in
http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win1997/entries/leibniz-mind/:
"Here Leibniz gives a reason tied to his complete concept theory of substance,
according to which "the nature of an individual substance or of a complete being
is to have a notion so complete that it is sufficient to contain and to allow us
to deduce from it all the redicates of the subject to which this notion is
attributed" (Discourse on Metaphysics, ec. 8). But there are, it seems, at least
two problems with this explanation. First, Leibniz moves rather quickly from a
conceptual explanation of substance in terms of the omplete concept theory, to
the conclusion that this consideration is sufficient to explain the ctivity of
concrete substances. Second, even if conceptual considerations about substances
were sufficient to explain their apparent causal activity, it does not seem to
follow that substances do not interact--unless one is assuming that causal
overdetermination is not a genuine possibility. Leibniz seems to be assuming
just that, but without argument. "
>
> The discussion is directed at the issue at hand! :-) The one comment
> that I have of it is that the negation of dualism that Leibniz espouses
> is a bit misguided. The use of an ab initio "pre-established harmony"
> ("created minds and bodies are programmed at creation such that all
> their natural states and actions are carried out in mutual
> coordination.") to explain the facts of psycho-physical parallelism is
> subject to the same criticisms as the notion of a priori Cauchy
> hypersurfaces (cf. http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/gr-qc/9310031)used in GR to
> fix the initial conditions of the Universe.
>
> "Leibniz's account of mind-body causation was in terms of his famous
> doctrine of the preestablished harmony. According to the latter, (1) no
> state of a created substance has as a real cause some state of another
> created substance (i.e. a denial of inter-substantial causality); (2)
> every non-initial, non-miraculous, state of a created substance has as a
> real cause some previous state of that very substance (i.e. an
> affirmation of intra-substantial causality); and (3) each created
> substance is programmed at creation such that all its natural states and
> actions are carried out in conformity with all the natural states and
> actions of every other created substance."
> http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win1997/entries/leibniz-mind/#Noin
>
> If we are to mind the consequences of the Uncertainty Principle (UP),
> we must dismiss this assumption on absolute initiality.
I did not find time to see the pages you quoted below (I might have seen them
before but am not sure). But if the initiality were an "absolute" initiality, it
might be free from UP.
> This is were the
> ideas sketched out by Vaughan Pratt
> (http://boole.stanford.edu/chuguide.html#ratmech) and Peter Wegner
> (http://www.cs.brown.edu/people/pw/papers/bcj1.pdf) can come to our aid,
> but that is the subject of other postings. :-)
>
> [HK]
> > My interpretation is that a monad in the context of Leibniz is a local
system
> > without disturbance in my context. Simpleness which Leibniz requires monads
does
> > not contradict the plurality of the elements in a local system: A local
system
> > becomes a different local system if it is divided, so it is indivisible as
local
> > systems and is an elementary unit of existence. "Monads have no windows, by
> > which anything could come in or go out." is true for local systems in the
sense
> > that: a local system becomes a different local system if "anything could
come in
> > or go out" with respect to the local system, and therefore, as far as a
local
> > system remains the same, it has "no windows."
>
> Yes, it is very important to note that any observation whatsoever of a
> Quantum Mechanical Local System (LS) implies that it is perturbed by
> the act and thus we could consider such as implying a change of the LS.
> We might consider that the act of observation of a LS is an act of
> selection from an equivalence class (defined using ZFC- set theory. cf.
> http://bugs.cs.wcupa.edu/~lizhang/Thesis/thesis/abstract.html) of
> permitted LSs.
>From the page you quoted:
"In 1917, Mirimanoff first stated the fundamental difference between
well-founded and non-well-founded sets. He called sets with no infinite
descending membership sequence ordinary, and others extraordinary. In 1988,
Peter Aczel introduced a uniform terminology. He replaced the Foundation Axiom
(FA) with the Anti-Foundation Axiom (AFA). Aczel's AFA states that every graph,
well founded or not, pictures a unique set. This results in Hyperset Theory or
ZFC-. In ZFC-, a bisimulation determines whether two hypersets are equivalent
and consequently makes the classification of hypersets possible. "
What does the equivalence mean here, i.e. how is "bisimulation" defined and how
does it determine the required equivalence relation? And how is that
equivalence relation related with the following?:
> This might take into account the notion that Hitoshi
> points out: "...a local system becomes a different local system if
> "anything could come in or go out" with respect to the local system, and
> therefore, as far as a local system remains the same, it has "no
> windows."
>
> > I agree with Koichiro:
> >
> > > It seems to me that Leibniz would lose nothing even if his monad is
> > > allowed to have a tiny window through which to see the outside nearby.
> >
> > in the point that no local system is observable if it does not change by the
> > perturbation associated with the observation. In so far as we consider
> > observation of local systems, they have windows. However, being a true atom
> > remains valid in the internal world of each local system, where no outside
is
> > considered and no disturbance is from the outside.
>
> Yes, but here we are approaching the difficult issue! :-)
I should appreciate it if you would explain the difficulties.
>
> > I think Leibniz' monad without windows would be an expression of the
westerners'
> > concerns on the internal world, which seems to have been lost in the Modern
age
> > at least apparently. I would interpret this Leibniz' windowless monad as a
> > succession of a good part of the Medieval age in the point that it describes
a
> > characteristic of the inner world of ours.
> >
> > I would like to know the opinions or views of western philosophers on this
> > point, i.e. my question is: In the western philosophy, what Leibniz'
windowless
> > monad means, how it is justified in his context, and how it has been a
problem.
> > The understanding of this point might be a key for the western and the
eastern
> > thoughts to understand mutually. I should appreciate it if any of you would
give
> > us your thoughts. Especially I should be grateful to Lance and Stephen if
they
> > would let us know their opinions.
>
> It appears to me that the habituation of Western thought following a
> materialistic and reductionistic paradigm is one root of this problem.
I am interested in how this "materialistic and reductionistic paradigm" came
into the western thoughts.
> It is tacitly assumed that mental behaviors are completely within the
> purview of materialistic models, viz. "mind is an epiphenomenon of
> matter". It is well illustrated in the following commentary of a book by
> David Ray Griffin:
>
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0520209443/thehauntedbookst/002-2865956-9
281866
> and this comment on E. T. Jaynes' thoughts:
> http://www-eksl.cs.umass.edu/~oates/791T/readings/jaynes/introduction.html
>
> The problem is that it can be equally argued that "matter is an
> epiphenomenon of mind" have similar problems! See:
>
> http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epiphenomenalism/
> http://home.ican.net/~arandall/Bradley/
> http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10321a.htm
> http://www.khouse.org/custance/mind/ch1m.html
> http://www.ling.rochester.edu/~duniho/MS-Thesis/Ch._3-Comparisons.html
> etc.
> So, what do we do in order to proceed? :-) Perhaps Leibniz offers a
> clue:
> (http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win1997/entries/leibniz-mind/)
>
> "...it is his view that the world consists solely of one type of
> substance, though there are infinitely many substances of that type.
> These substances are partless, unextended entities, some of which are
> endowed with thought and consciousness, and others of which found the
> phenomenality of the corporeal world. "
> The question them becomes: What quality is it that distinguishes those
> monads that are "endowed with thought and consciousness" and the "others
> of which found the phenomenality of the corporeal world"?
Given the probelm this may be a solution, but I need to understand how the
western philosophy comes to the problem of mind and matter, without
understanding which I think we could not go further.
> For consistency sake we should remember that monads would be
> indistinguishable to an hypothetical ideal observer; such an requirement
> causes us a serious problem if we are not allowed to consider monads
> externally as atoms that can exist in different configurations in some
> empty space-time as well as having the internal ability to represent
> such.
> We are then in a position to inquire into the possibility that the
> above eluded to quality that distinguishes monads is the distinction
> between matter and information.
> In order to go further, I believe that we need to have a commonly
> agreed upon definition of information. Here are some relevant URLs:
>
> http://www.aip.org/physnews/preview/1997/qinfo/sidebar1.htm
> http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/Papers/Contrast&Invariance.html
>
ftp://ftp.vub.ac.be/pub/projects/Principia_Cybernetica/PRNCYB-L/Information&Mean
ing.txt
>
> Well, I guess that I should stop at this point and see that reactions
> result from my musings. :-)
>
> Kindest regards,
>
> Stephen
>
> http://members.home.net/stephenk1/Outlaw/Outlaw.html
>
Best wishes,
Hitoshi
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