The Nature of Consciousness

Piero Scaruffi

(Copyright © 2013 Piero Scaruffi | Legal restrictions )

Inquire about purchasing the book | Table of Contents | Return to Chapter 2 Index


(These are excerpts from, or extensions to, the material published in my book "The Nature of Consciousness")

Monism

Baruch Spinoza; Bertrand Russell

There is an obvious alternative to dualism: monism. According to monism, body and mind (matter and thought) are made of the same substance: “idealists” think that everything is mental, “materialists” think that everything is material. So monism mainly divides into idealism and materialism.

But the "one" substance that everything is made of can also be something else than matter or mind.

The Dutch philosopher Baruch Spinoza (17th century), for example, believed that only one substance exists, and that “the” substance has two properties: it is conscious and it has extension. Individuals are parts of that substance, which is ultimately God. God is all that exists (he is what is), there is nothing that is not God.

The British philosopher Bertrand Russell was also a monist of sort, because he believed that everything in the universe is made of spacetime events which are neither mental nor physical.

(Edited in 2013 by Sean Champagne from Piero Scaruffi's book and subsequent revisions)


(Copyright © 2013 Piero Scaruffi | Legal restrictions )