Hi Bruno Marchal 1) A monad is something like a soul, to which a homunculus is attached. Human humunculuses have intellect, feeling and body, animal and perhaps vegetable monads only have feeling and body, and bodies of matter only have the body partition. All are considered to be alive.
In general I would say that a monad is a partless, isolated, individual concept complete enough to represent the identity of a corporeal body. It is windowless and thus blind and incapable of being acted on or act on other monads. So it is blind and passive. Although these characteristics would seem to make a monad dead and useless, it is in fact alive and is being continuously updated by the supreme monad, which is all-good, all-powerful and omniscient. The term "monad" has been used in neoplatonism, gnosticism, computer programming, and even in quantum mechanics. These all mean substantially different things, although in all of these, "monad" refers loosely to "one" or "unitary." For a general description see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monadology Leibniz's version, which I use, differs somewhat from these and is difficult to understand because he does not give a concise definition that is complete, but rather gives its 97 characteristics in his monadology: http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/ge/leibniz.htm You will note that each characteristic follows logically from the previous one. Logicians refer to a monad as a complete concept, meaning that it is a proposition with all the predicates needed to clearly define it. Each monad has a stack of "perceptions" which reflect the perceptions of the universe of monads from that monad's point of view that are actually acquired and passed on continuously by the monad of monads. You might think of these as the energy states of a monad. 2) The monad also has a stack of "appetites", which you might think of its potential desire or will. Hence L's reference to the internally viewed appetite as free will. Besides the appetites, the monad also has an internal energy source. Roger Clough, rclo...@verizon.net 9/29/2012 "Forever is a long time, especially near the end." -Woody Allen ----- Receiving the following content ----- From: Bruno Marchal Receiver: everything-list Time: 2012-09-28, 10:00:32 Subject: Re: Epiphenomenalism (was: Re: Bruno's Restaurant) On 28 Sep 2012, at 11:56, Roger Clough wrote: > Hi Bruno Marchal and all, from Leibniz's point of view: > > 1) Free will is possible with L's determinism if defined > in the following way: if the monad sees the appetite, > then the action is free will. If not, not. I would have said that this is freedom, not free will. To be franc, I still don't know how to interpret "monad". > > 2) Consciousness does not emerge from matter, That's coherent with computationalism. > it > is a "fulgeration" of the All (the monad of monads), > to use L's term. I think that means emanation, not sure. > Matter is never in complete control, nor are the monads, > nor in fact is the All. OK. > L's causation is cooperative. > The monad of monads appears to cause changes, but it can only > do so according to the monads' perceptions, according > to their individual desires, because monads are unaffected > by other monads. All changes in monads are actually > caused by their previous states. Looks like monad might be interpreted in the comp theory by a computational state, or a relative number (relative to a universal system or number). > Since this must occur > according to the preestablished harmony, to me that all boils down > to mean that the preestablished harmony is a script for > monadic change. It looks like a script describing (a part of) arithmetical truth. > Like the prices of stock market stocks, > it contains all you need or can know to predict > the future states of all monads, those being individually > given by their previous states. Since the previous states have > been constantly reset so that each monad knows everything > in the univefrse uniqueloy from its own point of view. That's not quite clear for me, sorry. Bruno > > > > Roger Clough, rclo...@verizon.net > 9/28/2012 > "Forever is a long time, especially near the end." -Woody Allen > > > ----- Receiving the following content ----- > From: Bruno Marchal > Receiver: everything-list > Time: 2012-09-27, 12:52:30 > Subject: Re: Epiphenomenalism (was: Re: Bruno's Restaurant) > > > On 27 Sep 2012, at 15:08, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > >> On Thu, Sep 27, 2012 at 6:06 PM, Bruno Marchal >> wrote: >> >>> You can approximate consciousness by "belief in self-consistency". >>> This has >>> already a "causal efficacy", notably a relative self-speeding >>> ability (by >>> G?el "length of proof" theorem). But "belief in self-consistency" >>> is pure >>> 3p, and is not consciousness, you get consciousness because the >>> machine will >>> confuse the belief in self-consistency with the truth of its >>> self-consistency, and this will introduce a quale. The machine can >>> be aware >>> of it, and (with enough cognitive ability) the machine will be >>> aware of its >>> non communicability, making it into a personal quale. >>> >>> I think you are doing a confusion level, like if matter was real, >>> and >>> consciousness only emerging on it. I thought that some times ago >>> you did >>> understand the movie graph argument, so that it is the illusion of >>> brain and >>> matter which emerges from consciousness, and this gives another >>> role for >>> consciousness: the bringing of physical realities through number >>> relations >>> being selected (non causally, here). Consciousness is what makes >>> notions of >>> causal efficacy meaningful to start with. >> >> I object to the idea that consciousness will cause a brain or other >> machine to behave in a way not predictable by purely physical laws. > > But this cannot be entirely correct. Consciousness will make your > brain, at the level below the substitution level, having some well > defined state, with an electron, for example, described with some > precise position. Without consciousness there is no "material" brain > at all. > > Of course, you will argue that this is what physics already describes, > with QM. In that sense I am OK, but consciousness is still playing a > role, even if it is not necessarily the seemingly magical role invoked > by Craig. > > > > > >> Some people, like Craig Weinberg, seem to believe that this is >> possible but it is contrary to all science. > > I agree with you on this. As an argument against mechanism, your point > is valid. My point is that the way you talk might been misleading as > it looks like it is bearing on some notion of primitively causal > matter, but it does not. That plays some role when comparing the "comp > matter" and the QM matter. > > > >> This applies even if the >> whole universe is really just a simulation, because what we observe >> is >> at the level of the simulation. > > Not if we observe ourselves or our neighborhood below our substitution > level. In that case we can see only the trace of all infinitely many > possible simulations, or computations, leading to our actual current > computational states. Again we can say that QM confirms this a > posteriori. > In that case an observation will determine a brain state, in the same > way a self-localization after duplication determines a self-localized > state (like I am in this well defined city). > > Bruno > > > > >> >>> I think it is the same error as using determinacy to refute free- >>> will. This >>> would be correct if we were living at the determinist base level, >>> but we are >>> not. Consciousness and free-will are real at the level where we >>> live, and >>> unreal, in the big 3p picture, but this concerns only the "outer >>> god", not >>> the "inner one" which can *know* a part of its local self- >>> consistency, and >>> cannot know its local future. >> >> >> -- >> Stathis Papaioannou >> >> -- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google >> Groups "Everything List" group. >> To post to this group, send email to everything- >> l...@googlegroups.com. >> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to >> everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com >> . >> For more options, visit this group at >> http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en >> . >> > > http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ > > > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google > Groups "Everything List" group. > To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com > . > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en > . > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google > Groups "Everything List" group. > To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com > . > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en > . > http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
