Dale Jacquette listens in on an argument about what can be deduced from the fact of our experience of a complex world.
http://philosophynow.org/issues/92/A_Di ... etaphysics
A Dialogue on Metaphysics
Re: A Dialogue on Metaphysics
I don't really see the argument being made.
A mind may be necessary for the world of appearances, but appearances are appearances, and need not be the things behind those appearances. "Individuation" is, then, simply the appearance of division. What things are in themselves, is, by this lexicon, completely unknown. They are quite possibly divided in themselves, in whatever way that might be without there being anyone to whom that division might appear. And by the same token, there is nothing contradictory about that thing-in-itself being purely physical and also evolving a mind, if you buy a naturalistic account of mind.
A mind may be necessary for the world of appearances, but appearances are appearances, and need not be the things behind those appearances. "Individuation" is, then, simply the appearance of division. What things are in themselves, is, by this lexicon, completely unknown. They are quite possibly divided in themselves, in whatever way that might be without there being anyone to whom that division might appear. And by the same token, there is nothing contradictory about that thing-in-itself being purely physical and also evolving a mind, if you buy a naturalistic account of mind.