SEP Dualism article Discussion

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(2021-04-19, 09:26 AM)Smaw Wrote: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/dualism/

I would just say for everyone just to study up again. Plato gives a very fair assessment. Dualism can be enticing, but there are significant problems. Definitely a reason why people stay away and go to things like panpsychism or idealism. Though I don't want to start discussing flaws while in a Kastrup thread.

Hmmm, I think the materialist Lycan's paper Giving Dualism its Due takes some wind out of the critic's sails?

edit: I'll post more regarding the Aristotle/Aquinas stuff later....
'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: 2021-04-19, 03:00 PM by Sciborg_S_Patel.)
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  • tim
(2021-04-19, 02:56 PM)Sciborg_S_Patel Wrote: Hmmm, I think the materialist Lycan's paper Giving Dualism its Due takes some wind out of the critic's sails?

edit: I'll post more regarding the Aristotle/Aquinas stuff later....

Good paper that, Sci ! 

 (two of the four? objections to dualism) : 

Cartesian interaction violates known laws of physics.  Newtonian physics, yes but I thought quantum physics opened the door with the observer effect ? 

All known mental phenomena are highly dependent on detailed brain function [ibid.: 20; Churchland says this ‘comes close to being an outright refutation of (substance) dualism’].

So what about the well documented and verified reports of consciousness from patients in cardiac arrest with no brain function?

As he concludes, dualism makes just as much sense as materialism. And with the new data coming from NDE's etc, I would say it easily surpasses it.
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  • Sciborg_S_Patel
(2021-04-19, 03:49 PM)tim Wrote: Good paper that, Sci ! 

 (two of the four? objections to dualism) : 

Cartesian interaction violates known laws of physics.  Newtonian physics, yes but I thought quantum physics opened the door with the observer effect ? 

All known mental phenomena are highly dependent on detailed brain function [ibid.: 20; Churchland says this ‘comes close to being an outright refutation of (substance) dualism’].

So what about the well documented and verified reports of consciousness from patients in cardiac arrest with no brain function?

As he concludes, dualism makes just as much sense as materialism. And with the new data coming from NDE's etc, I would say it easily surpasses it.
Parapsychology stuff can definitely be a potential point in favour of dualism, but I'd say it needs more research and more interest before anything can be said for certain. Cartesian interaction has problems with stuff like conservation of energy, apparent causal closure of the physical and the actual method of interaction itself. The observer effect is a heavily contested spot in physics and there's a whole range of problems and counters with it. Just going off it flat, it doesn't give much room to dualism and if you brought it up to a physicist they might strangle you, cause it's a very common misconception that it entails some human mind influencing reality stuff.
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  • tim, Sciborg_S_Patel, Typoz
(2021-04-20, 08:34 AM)Smaw Wrote: Parapsychology stuff can definitely be a potential point in favour of dualism, but I'd say it needs more research and more interest before anything can be said for certain. Cartesian interaction has problems with stuff like conservation of energy, apparent causal closure of the physical and the actual method of interaction itself. The observer effect is a heavily contested spot in physics and there's a whole range of problems and counters with it. Just going off it flat, it doesn't give much room to dualism and if you brought it up to a physicist they might strangle you, cause it's a very common misconception that it entails some human mind influencing reality stuff.

I agree these are problems but I think of these assume the closure of the physical as per current physics. Thus they'd be problems for Survival regardless?

Just for myself it is easier to avoid this question of metaphysics unless it needs to come up, as in if someone is saying there's no room for the soul or Psi in the world.

Oddly enough I think the increased popularity of the Simulation Hypothesis, that we're in a Matrix or are just programs of a special kind, has made it easier for people to reconcile the idea [of Survival in a different body] just as in the past the greater number of physicists talking about 4th,5th...11th dimensions also gave a space for the afterlife.
'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: 2021-04-20, 07:26 PM by Sciborg_S_Patel.)

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