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The mind body problem has often been approached within the framework of materialism or dualism. If materialism is inconsistent with the holonomic paradigm, one might think that dualism is implied. But that is not the position taken by the researchers whose work was described on the preceding pages. Pribram (1986), for example, advocated a neutral monism, in which mind and matter both exist and interact. There is a certain dualism in Pribram's view, but between the explicate and implicate orders, not mind and matter.

Pribram argued for a pluralistic monism in which "informational structure" remains neutral to the apparent distinction between mind and matter. He goes on to note that the implicate order Bohm described introduces such information structure in the hidden variables of the implicate order, beyond the material system. Bohm (1980) argued that in the implicate order both matter and consciousness arise from common variables beyond the explicated nature of either. Pribram and Bohm agree that the world arises out of a neutral monism in which the implicate, potential states are explicated upon observation, and that is the only duality of the world.

Walker also argued that consciousness needs to be conceptualized as something real although nonphysical to make the data of physics logically consistent. He nevertheless has reservations about neutral monism. Clearly there will be considerable debate as the new holonomic paradigm continues to emerge. It is clear, however, that traditional views of materialism are most inconsistent with the new paradigm and that the mind body problem is fundamentally recast.