"The principal barrier to a general acceptance of the monist position is that it is counterintuitive"
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Shermer is doing a neat bit of rhetorical judo here: he concedes the audience's gut reaction, then treats that reaction as the problem to be explained, not the verdict to be obeyed. Calling monism "counterintuitive" isn't an apology for a difficult idea; it's a diagnosis of the human hardware that makes certain metaphysical options feel wrong on first contact.
The intent is strategic. In debates about mind and matter, people often treat intuition as evidence, as if the felt obviousness of dualism (mind as a special substance, consciousness as a ghostly add-on) were a kind of data point. Shermer flips that. The barrier isn't lack of proof or logical weakness; it's the mismatch between evolved cognitive instincts and what a unified picture of reality implies. That move borrows authority from a familiar modern posture: science advances by humiliating common sense. The Earth moves, time dilates, species change. Of course monism feels strange.
Subtext: if you reject monism because it "doesn't feel right", you're admitting you're being steered by cognitive bias, not argument. Shermer, a professional skeptic, is quietly recruiting readers into his tribe: the people who can sit with discomfort long enough to update their worldview.
Context matters because "monist position" is doing a lot of work. In Shermer's orbit, monism often means physicalism: minds are what brains do. The line anticipates the standard resistance - the stubborn immediacy of subjective experience - and reframes it as a psychological hurdle rather than a philosophical refutation. It's less a proof than a pre-emptive strike against the most popular kind of dissent: the shrug of intuition dressed up as principle.
The intent is strategic. In debates about mind and matter, people often treat intuition as evidence, as if the felt obviousness of dualism (mind as a special substance, consciousness as a ghostly add-on) were a kind of data point. Shermer flips that. The barrier isn't lack of proof or logical weakness; it's the mismatch between evolved cognitive instincts and what a unified picture of reality implies. That move borrows authority from a familiar modern posture: science advances by humiliating common sense. The Earth moves, time dilates, species change. Of course monism feels strange.
Subtext: if you reject monism because it "doesn't feel right", you're admitting you're being steered by cognitive bias, not argument. Shermer, a professional skeptic, is quietly recruiting readers into his tribe: the people who can sit with discomfort long enough to update their worldview.
Context matters because "monist position" is doing a lot of work. In Shermer's orbit, monism often means physicalism: minds are what brains do. The line anticipates the standard resistance - the stubborn immediacy of subjective experience - and reframes it as a psychological hurdle rather than a philosophical refutation. It's less a proof than a pre-emptive strike against the most popular kind of dissent: the shrug of intuition dressed up as principle.
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| Topic | Reason & Logic |
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