Mind-body dualism strikes me as possibly the least elegant and magic-leap-proof alternative to physicalism, so it’s unfortunate that people who explore this qu

Mind-body dualism strikes me as possibly the least elegant and magic-leap-proof alternative to physicalism, so it’s unfortunate that people who explore this question get stuck on it. In fact, non-material monist views exist! See, for example, Kant and Schrödinger. Some of Wolfram’s ideas[0] at first approach seem to be interpretable from this angle. I’m not going to do the entirety of monism justice in a paragraph, but as one take: perhaps interacting with other conscious entities involves changes in yours and tends to manifest itself as physical changes within time-space, a lossy map constructed as a shortcut/interface to the otherwise overwhelming underlying territory? This does not require conjuring an entire universe, with its arbitrary laws and constants, to explain perception supplied by consciousness (the only thing we have direct access to, that physicalists nevertheless tend to treat as a magic side-effect of magically existing reality). [0] https://writings.stephenwolfram.com/2022/06/alien-intelligence-and-the-concept-of-technology/ https://writings.stephenwolfram.com/2022/06/alien-intelligen...