On Substance

I wish to develop a theory of the mind and a theory of ethics. I want a working hypothesis that accounts for my ability to understand the world and communicate with other people, and as well accounts for my reasons for choosing one course of action against some other course of action. In so doing, I accept the reality of the world on faith. I have no answer to dogmatic skepticism other than to point out that it is a pointless point of view. I must act in order to survive. This is my fundamental axiom. I do not doubt that survival is my first order of business. The reality of me, my identity, as well as the reality of other objects is directly implied by the axiom. I cannot prove the axiom, but I must start somewhere and this is a minimal assumption. If I try to prove the axiom by acting contrary to it, I will cease to exist.
I do not need to think much to initiate the essential actions that are required to sustain my life. These basic actions seem to be part of my brain, I breathe, walk, run, find water and food, all without much thought. These basic actions alone do not provide me much assurance against a hostile world. Other objects are hoping to make a meal of me or at least to gain dominion over me and steal the fruits of my labor. To guard against these hazards I must plan a course or many courses of action. There is safety in numbers. My odds of survival increase as a member of a community, which requires language. I find the tool useful here is the mind, which has the capacity to understand the nature of the objects in the world and is able to communicate. I can learn the properties of individual objects and vast systems of objects by sensation and by communication. Understanding the properties of the objects that constitute the universe, particularly my immediate world, greatly increases the odds of my surviving for longer periods. Whether I learn by sensation or communication the resultant knowledge functions in the same manner. My theory must account for this fact.
The process of coming to know about objects and systems is the process of attributing properties to them. I have two ways in which I can analyze the objects in the world and the universe as a whole. I can assume it to be composed of one substance organized in various ways, or I can assume that each object is unique because it is composed of a unique substance. I define to substance to be that which constitutes reality. If I assume the single substance route, I realize that this assumption must apply equally to me. That is to say, I must be composed of the same substance as all other objects. The single substance hypothesis has a great advantage over the many substances hypothesis. If I can manage to understand the properties of the substance, I can understand the properties of objects without analyzing each individual object. I can plan, I can make inferences. Additionally, there is not a single shred of evidence that more than one substance composes the universe. The deeper we look the more evidence piles up in favor of a single substance.
As I look around the universe, I see a great many different kinds of objects. Some of them are similar in that their properties all very nearly alike, but many are different in that they do not have many or any properties in common. At first it seems unlikely that a single substance can somehow produce the great variety of objects that occupy the universe, and it seems unbelievable or at least improbable that the same substance that produces the properties of a star can also produce the properties of intelligence and consciousness. In spite of the difficulty of making the single substance scenario work, I will stick with it because the payoff is huge. The analytic tool of inference works best under the single substance scenario. I need the tool of inference to survive, without it the odds of surviving decrease sharply.
Three hundred years ago Immanuel Kant produced a remarkable system of thought that explained the mind and ethics, the same goal I have here. He successfully integrated the knowledge of his age into a consistent system that produced the best possible account of the mind and ethics given what was known in the early 1700’s. His account includes the concept of “the thing-in-itself”. Because there was no account of substance available to him that could explain the properties of objects, he assumed that the underlying nature of objects cannot be known, only the properties of the objects themselves can be known. He did not know that blue objects were blue because the atoms that compose the object were absorbing all of the visible electromagnetic radiation except the wavelength that corresponds to the color we have labeled blue, which it reflects. His age was the dawn of awareness that there are properties that adhere to all things. Once the step is taken that attributes a certain set of properties to all things, the goal of understanding the properties of a single substance comes into view.
Kant knew for instance that the principle of inertia applied to all things, objects in motion will continue in uniform motion until acted on by a force. He knew that the force of gravity acted on all objects. He knew the principle of causation and conservation of momentum, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. He did not see that these properties adhere to all objects because they are all composed of the same substance. Even if he had made this connection, too little was known about the nature of the substance to be of any use in his epistemology and ethics.

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