Anaesthesia and the soul

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(2018-01-15, 09:53 PM)Desperado Wrote: My question is this though. I've heard more than one person say that all of this still (the effects of drugs, etc) works inside an idealist and even a dualist interpretation. Does anyone agree with that?

"Idealism is the group of metaphysical philosophies which assert that reality, or reality as humans can know it, is fundamentally mental, mentally constructed, or otherwise immaterial. Epistemologically, idealism manifests as a skepticism about the possibility of knowing any mind-independent thing....Idealism theories are mainly divided into two groups. Subjective idealism concedes the primacy of human consciousness and believes that the existing world is a combination of sensation. Objective idealism concedes the primacy of an objective consciousness which exists before and, in some sense, independently of human ones." (Wiki)

Using the above definition, it appears that the various apparent evidences of materialist neuroscience that mind in some way equals brain function are incompatible with subjective idealism. These evidences appear to be compatible with objective idealism, since subjective human consciousness is held to be secondary to and independent of whatever objective consciousness is. It does not appear that the various types of paranormal evidence that mind is independent of the physical brain are directly predicted by either form of idealism, especially since part of that evidence is of the existence of some sort of mobile center of consciousness independent of matter. 


Interactive dualism is the philosophical position that mental phenomena are non-physical and there is a separate physical world, the mind and physical body are distinct and separable, and that the mind, mental states, causally interacts with physical states. In other words, the mind and the body are separate entities that causally interact to produce conscious experience. 

I think the advantage goes to interactive dualism, since (1) the various apparent evidences that mind = brain function are compatible with and are predicted by interactive dualism, and (2) the various types of paranormal evidence that mind is independent of the physical brain and can exist as some sort of mobile center of consciousness are also directly predicted by interactive dualism.
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