> individual events are neutral, neither mental nor physical. Neutral events make up “physical” systems and extensions and “mental” sensations in minds through different functional relations. (Banks 2014: 203) This is very much in keeping with the traditional version of neutral monism, especially Russell’s event-based version. But Banks embeds this core idea into a larger metaphysical framework. The resulting theory is thoroughly original.In a first step, Banks explains how this core idea fits into a larger _a posteriori_ physicalist picture. Physicalism, according to Banks, is best thought of as the view that mental supervenes on the physical. Standard physicalism focuses on the question of how mental properties and relations depend physical properties and relations. But Banks sides with the Russellian monist in holding that standard physicalism does not specify the nature of the entities that exemplify these properties and relations. So-called “enhanced physicalism” goes beyond standard physicalism in specifying the nature of the entities that bear or instantiate the relevant properties and relations:> In enhanced physicalism…the instantiation of all physical properties are individualized event particulars in causal-functional relations to each other. (Banks 2014: 147) This is how the neutral events slot into the enhanced physicalist picture that Banks favors.In a second step, Banks provides us with an account of events. Events have, and are individuated by, intrinsic characters or concrete qualities. None of those qualities are mental; but experience familiarizes us with some of them (see Banks 2014: 6). These qualities are the ways certain powers manifest themselves in events (see Banks 2014: 6). Examples of such powers (or energies) include electromagnetism, gravitation, and nuclear forces, and, most relevant in the present context, neural energy—the internal energies in neurons (see Banks 2014,149, 203). Manifesting itself qualitatively at the level of the single neuron, this energy may yield an electrical discharge event; but manifesting itself at the level of a complex brain event—an event that is “somehow ‘composed’ of neurons firing in some kind of cluster” (Banks 2014: 147)—this very same neural energy may yield the event that is a sensation of blue. This closes the apparent chasm between the experience of blue and the firing of a bunch of neurons:> the quality blue and the individual electrical discharges are just different and mutually exclusive manifestations of the same natural powers which we mistakenly see as belonging to totally different categories of event. (Banks 2014: 164) This is an attractive picture, but it is difficult to see it as a monism of neutral events. Wherein does the neutrality of these events—an experience of blue and neural firing events—consist? Moreover, it is not obvious that events (whether neutral or not) play a fundamental ontological role. In their place we find the powers/energies that give rise to events.Banks addresses this second problem head on: Powers are identical with their token manifestations, identical with the events that consist in the individual qualities wherein these powers manifest themselves (see Banks 2014: 149).[[25](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/neutral-monism/notes.html#note-25)] There is no separate, more fundamental level of reality underlying the events. The powers just _are_ the events. The neural energy is identical with the event that is the electrical discharging of a group of neurons; this same neural energy is also identical with the event that is a sensation of blue. But, and this is a crucial part of Banks’s view, the discharge events are not identical with the blue sensation. Banks sees the question that this poses clearly:> how can it be the case that the powers are identical with each of their token manifestations and even identical qua powers across different token manifestation events, but that different token manifestation events are not identical to each other? (Banks 2014: 149) This is not an easy knot to unravel. Perhaps an appeal to the controversial notion of “relative identity” might help.