Dualism or idealist monism as the best model for survival after death data

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(2024-01-23, 11:12 AM)Valmar Wrote: Interesting. Previously, you made no reference when making the claim, and I hadn't previously seen any mention of him being a Property Dualist. His position didn't strike me of one as a Property Dualist, as I had no reason to assume so.

Besides that... does Nagel himself state anywhere that he himself is explicitly a Property Dualist?

I couldn't find (and there probably isn't any such source) where Nagel states "I'm a property dualist". But in this book

Amazon.com: What Does It All Mean?: A Very Short Introduction to Philosophy eBook : Nagel, Thomas: Kindle Store

he writes:

Quote:"It's hard to know how we could decide whether we have seperable souls. All the evidence is that before death, conscious life depends entirely on what happens in the nervous system. If we go only by ordinary observation, rather than religious doctrines or spiritualist claims to communicate with the dead, there is no reason to believe in an afterlife. Is that, however a reason to believe that there is not an afterlife? I think so, but others may prefer to remain neutral."

If you compound this position with his denial of physical reductionism it implies he is a property dualist (or a position closely resembling property dualism)

(By the way I think the growing body of evidence from NDEs and terminal lucidity, probably not commonly known when he wrote this in 1987, challenges his statement about the nervous system)
(This post was last modified: 2024-01-23, 01:30 PM by sbu. Edited 2 times in total.)
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I am curious about Chalmer's claim that we don't have evidence of a soul.

We may not have absolutely hard proof, depending on where one places their goalposts, but even Sam Harris has said the work of Stevenson is good enough to merit further research.

Is Chalmer's simply unaware of CORT cases & NDEs? 

Or is he just following the academic party line that you can say all sorts of bizarre things - like the idea some Holy Grail Program can make [a] Turing Machine conscious - so long as you don't say anything that might give credence to religious beliefs?
'Historically, we may regard materialism as a system of dogma set up to combat orthodox dogma...Accordingly we find that, as ancient orthodoxies disintegrate, materialism more and more gives way to scepticism.'

- Bertrand Russell


(This post was last modified: 2024-01-23, 06:21 PM by Sciborg_S_Patel.)
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(2024-01-23, 06:21 PM)Sciborg_S_Patel Wrote: Or is he just following the academic party line that you can say all sorts of bizarre things - like the idea some Holy Grail Program can make [a] Turing Machine conscious - so long as you don't say anything that might give credence to religious beliefs?

Property dualism doesn't require any conscious Turing machine. You need to recognize there's a position in between substance dualism and reductive physicalism. It's also evident from the Thomas Nagel quote. I would advice you to read Chalmers paper on emergence.
(This post was last modified: 2024-01-23, 07:11 PM by sbu. Edited 1 time in total.)
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(2024-01-23, 07:08 PM)sbu Wrote: Property dualism doesn't require any conscious Turing machine. You need to recognize there's a position in between substance dualism and reductive physicalism. It's also evident from the Thomas Nagel quote. I would advice you to read Chalmers paper on emergence.

I have read it, just seems unconvincing.

Seems more about realizing that people will see materialism is intellectually bankrupt so you need to pretend there are "properties" in matter that somehow can make up the actual experienced consciousness.
'Historically, we may regard materialism as a system of dogma set up to combat orthodox dogma...Accordingly we find that, as ancient orthodoxies disintegrate, materialism more and more gives way to scepticism.'

- Bertrand Russell


(2024-01-23, 10:14 AM)Valmar Wrote: Fundamentally, Substance Dualism takes no position regarding any kind of faith in any religion or spiritualism. Those are rather different questions than what Substance Dualism asks. Substance Dualism simply recognizes that there are two base substances ~ mind and matter, the mental and the physical, to say nothing about faith or deities or spirituality.

Even before considering Substance Dualism I would say the "soul" is simply the position that the consciousness I have now continues past bodily death.

I would agree with Chalmers that evidence is necessarily to solidify the claim of Survival, but there seem to be a variety of good philosophical reasons to consider Survival...in fact I think the evidence we do have is something we should expect on philosophical grounds in the same way that the confusion of "natural laws" that inexplicably don't change is why the stochastic nature of quantum level particles should be unsurprising.
'Historically, we may regard materialism as a system of dogma set up to combat orthodox dogma...Accordingly we find that, as ancient orthodoxies disintegrate, materialism more and more gives way to scepticism.'

- Bertrand Russell


(2024-01-24, 12:45 AM)Sciborg_S_Patel Wrote: I have read it, just seems unconvincing.

Seems more about realizing that people will see materialism is intellectually bankrupt so you need to pretend there are "properties" in matter that somehow can make up the actual experienced consciousness.

At least they don’t try to pretend that conscious doesn’t depend on what goes on in the nervous system.
(2024-01-23, 06:21 PM)Sciborg_S_Patel Wrote: Is Chalmer's simply unaware of CORT cases & NDEs

I think he is, yes. I emailed Chalmers many years ago to urge him to look at NDE's with respect to how they might inform, or assist him, if you see what I mean. 
He responded with a short message saying he wasn't familiar with the research (basically) and that was it. 

To this day, I can hardly believe it. NDE's "tell" us to stop (cease) looking in the brain and he won't even look at the sign post. I don't take him seriously anymore. I respect him for admitting the problem (the hard problem) but it seems to me he just wants to stay where he is. A kind of philosophical old pop star still living off his one hit. If that's not the case, what progress has he made.
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(2024-01-24, 09:00 AM)sbu Wrote: At least they don’t try to pretend that conscious(ness) doesn’t depend on what goes on in the nervous system.

It doesn't. Consciousness is still there when the brain is off line. The evidence is overwhelming and one would have to be a very devout reductionist materialist
to deny that.
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(2024-01-24, 12:00 PM)tim Wrote: It doesn't. Consciousness is still there when the brain is off line. The evidence is overwhelming and one would have to be a very devout reductionist materialist
to deny that.

I wish I could share your conviction.
(2024-01-24, 12:34 PM)sbu Wrote: I wish I could share your conviction.

That's interesting, sbu ! I honestly don't know (now that is) why anyone wouldn't, leaving out academics of course and their livelihoods which depend on the philosophy of materialism (drop it and they'll get 'booted out' in double quick time). Chalmers is one of those. BTW I know what I'm talking about, my very oldest friend is a professor of psychology who thinks you go to heaven when you die (and so do many of his academic mates privately ) but you can't profess such a thing. I also have two other old friends in medicine, and they would broadly agree with that.

What, other than actually seeing consciousness exit the body (or brain more appropriately) would convince you ? I'd actually be less convinced if one could consistently observe "something". (I'm aware that it happens occasionally--claims are made about this) You may consider me biased (we all have our biases) but remember the one white grow adage. We have a huge flock of them now, it can't be denied, it's simply intellectually dishonest.

I do actually like you, BTW sbu. You have a rather appealing, dry sceptism, well informed (although typically evasive as most are) and you're always polite (not that you have to be of course).

Edit : Just to add, I think we should (it's time to anyway) accept that survival is true based on the sheer weight of evidence. I'm not however, suggesting that death (of the physical body that appears to be all we are) is anything other than ghastly and terribly sad (for those left behind), whether we accept survival or not. It rips you apart, (we had a recent bereavement not looking for any sympathy BTW).
(This post was last modified: 2024-01-24, 02:38 PM by tim. Edited 2 times in total.)
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