Contra Metaphysical Idealism

[bennyboy]

IMHO, Idealistic Monism of the Bishop Berkley variety seems to suffer from the same failings as physical monism. Neither address the tension between Constancy and Change. I see 4) as the problem, since it ignores the tacit subject and object distinction found in 1) and 2). I see no justification for saying that the thought of something is the same as the something itself.

If you don't have a monism, then you need a bridge between your two substances, in which case you have something which is BOTH substance A as well as substance B. But then you have a trinity-- mind/body/soul, with the soul being magically ambiguous anyway. And it seems to me that the point of insisting on a duality is not to allow a single substance which has an ambiguous-seeming nature. Therefore, it seems either a monism or a pluralism must be better than a dualism, which requires magical translation between unlike substances.

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As special pleading, the argument is a non sequitur and thus its conclusion isn't known to be true on this basis. That's why it's considered weak in all three cases, but of the three, science doesn't settle with resting on a non sequitur.

What's the qualitative difference between a physical framework and its members originating at a "time when there was no time" and a mental one and its members doing so? In either case, you suffer infinite regression or paradox, and a lack of an ultimate explanation for the why of it all.