In this article
- The question behind the comparison
- The single-source and nested-time proposal
- The comparator’s explanatory structure
- The precise agreement and difference
- Worked example: what follows and what does not
- What this comparison contributes
Psychical and physical realms: SMM/DTT and Leibniz’s Monadology
Leibniz coordinates bodily and perceptual histories without ordinary causal traffic between separate monads. SMM/DTT instead seeks a common source for physical and psychical appearances. The comparison develops this distinction through a worked example and explains its implications for SMM/DTT’s nested generation, completed records and account of the observable world.
01The question behind the comparison
Psychical and physical can name two kinds of description, two kinds of property, two modes of access, or two distinct realms of being. These are different positions. SMM/DTT’s attraction is the possibility that a single generative source supports both an outwardly measurable world and inwardly meaningful experience. A clear comparison begins by stating what the distinction means. Otherwise a shift from first-person experience to an additional spatial dimension can occur without argument.
An experience of red and a measurement of reflected light are related but answer different questions. The measurement specifies a public procedure and result. The experience concerns how something appears to a subject. A single-source ontology may seek to ground both, yet common dependence does not itself establish an identity between them or a law connecting them. If the psychical is given an autonomous causal role in physical events, the role must be specified. If it is a different aspect of the same events, the task is to explain the correspondence and the limits of each description.
DTT’s six nested inner levels belong to its proposed organization of generation. They should not be assigned one by one to unverified mental dimensions, nor equated with a list of brain networks merely because both lists contain several entries. A bridge to consciousness needs a criterion of subjecthood and a mapping from source states to accessible experience. A bridge to physics needs observables, probabilities and a dynamical law. The two bridges may share structure, but they remain distinct explanatory tasks. This allows the metaphysical programme to stay ambitious while its empirical claims remain precise.
02The single-source and nested-time proposal
SMM begins with one nonspatial generative source. DTT distinguishes its inner production from the outer order in which completed results become accessible. The six inner levels are nested functional dependencies within that production; the seventh denotes outer completion. They are not six independent clocks, six spatial directions, or six simultaneously occupied temporal axes. This distinction makes the framework more specific than a general claim that everything changes: it asks how a world of persistent relations can be generated before its spatial representation is taken for granted. [2]
03The comparator’s explanatory structure
Leibniz’s monads are many simple substances, each with its own succession of perceptions. Their coordinated world is explained through pre-established harmony rather than ordinary causal exchange between the monads. The Single Monad’s numerical unity is therefore a major departure, even though both projects question the ultimate status of spatially extended matter.
One can compare two synchronized clocks to clarify the contrast. If their agreement is fixed by their construction, they can display corresponding readings without sending signals to one another. If a common active source continually generates both displays, their coordination has a different explanation. Neither analogy exhausts Leibniz or SMM, but the difference matters: many enduring centers of perspective and one source of generated perspectives face different individuation problems. Leibniz’s account of perception also distinguishes it from reflective awareness, so the word monad should not be equated with an ordinary conscious person or with a modern computational register. [1]
04The precise agreement and difference
Leibniz coordinates bodily and perceptual histories without ordinary causal traffic between separate monads. SMM/DTT instead seeks a common source for physical and psychical appearances. Both can avoid a crude picture of an immaterial object pushing a material object, but their mechanisms of correspondence differ. Pre-established harmony begins with many individual perceptual centers; a single-source model must generate the centers and their relations.
A DTT account can be made clearer by asking whether a psychical state is a different readout of the same source configuration or an additional state with its own causal effects. The first option resembles coordinated aspects, while the second requires a law of interaction. Leibniz’s distinction between perception and reflective awareness also warns against equating all internal states with conscious experience. The comparison therefore gives SMM two concrete tasks: explain the physical–psychical correspondence and explain which generated perspectives are subjects. The six nested levels may organize the production, but do not answer either task simply by being called inner. [1]
05Worked example: what follows and what does not
A person silently imagines a triangle and later draws it. The imagined triangle is not a small physical object hidden behind the eyes; the drawing is not identical to the act of imagining. Both can be related through a person’s capacities, intentions and bodily actions. An account can treat these as two aspects of one process, as causally interacting states, or as different levels of description. Each interpretation must explain the same ordinary sequence without confusing representation with represented object. SMM/DTT’s source unity can frame the relation, but the transition from imagination to drawing still calls for a specified account of agency and physical action.
06What this comparison contributes
The most productive comparison therefore asks how a theory handles access, identity and causation across the distinction. Does it preserve first-person meaning? Does it explain public agreement? Does it introduce new causal effects or reinterpret familiar ones? Psychical discourse can make a serious philosophical contribution without being labelled a new measured dimension. Conversely, a genuine physical proposal becomes stronger when its additional variables and their observable effects are stated independently of the metaphysical language that motivated them.
THE SAME QUESTION, DIFFERENT STARTING POINTS
The comparison at a glance
| Question | SMM/DTT | Leibniz’s Monadology |
|---|---|---|
| Explanatory starting point | Psychical and physical descriptions are related through a common source while retaining distinct questions about experience, representation and public access. | Many simple monads carry distinct perceptual histories coordinated through pre-established harmony. |
| Key distinction | Imagining a triangle and drawing one require a relation between experience, intention and action; source unity alone does not specify that relation. | Leibniz coordinates bodily and perceptual histories without ordinary causal traffic between separate monads. |
KEEP THE CONNECTION
Key ideas
- Psychical and physical descriptions are related through a common source while retaining distinct questions about experience, representation and public access.
- A DTT account can be made clearer by asking whether a psychical state is a different readout of the same source configuration or an additional state with its own causal effects.
- Imagining a triangle and drawing one require a relation between experience, intention and action; source unity alone does not specify that relation.
Continue on SMONAD
- Physical Time and Spiritual Time →
Connects this comparison with the author’s discussion of realms.
- Preliminary Outline of Ibn Arabi's Cosmology →
Connects this comparison with the author’s discussion of realms.
- Observer and record: making observation part of the model →
Connects this comparison with the author’s discussion of realms.
- Introducing Ibn al-Arabi's View of Time →
Connects this comparison with the author’s discussion of realms.
- Philosophy of time and creation →
Connects this comparison with the author’s discussion of realms.
Sources and further reading
References support the comparator and the specific mathematical or interpretive claims indicated. SMM/DTT connections are developed in the analysis above.
- G. W. Leibniz, Monadology (1714), adapted English text by Jonathan Bennett ↗Primary philosophical text, especially §§1–17, 22–30, 38–42 and 56–62; plurality of monads, perception and pre-established harmony.
- Mohamed Haj Yousef, Philosophy of time and creation, SMONAD ↗Author’s philosophical discussion of source, dependence, renewal and records.
How these comparisons distinguish premises, results and physical claims