Wednesday, April 06, 2005

Dualism

It seems at best you can say that the status of Dualism is indeterminate from the interaction problem (that is the problem of the mind interacting with the body seemingly being contradictory to the laws of conservation of energy and momentum in physics). As a method of interaction could exist even though current information/science seems to point otherwise. Such information/science is incomplete, and seems to fail to identify the specific method that thought occurs by. Thus the argument seems to play twice off of the fallacy of argument from ignorance. The counter argument to mine also seems to fail as historical brazenness by scientists and philosophers about the completeness or near completeness of such and such science have almost universally proven to be false. Though it could be the case that science will be able to identify the specific method, it seems very doubtful when considering the radical changes that occur in theoretical sciences in relatively small time frames.

Physical dependence.
The argument that some how the mental had to evolve from the physical seems to rest upon a premise of there not being mental prior to physical. If one denies this, then this argument fails. And this is the very stance that the dualist theist would take.

The argument about damage/alteration causes a change in the abilities of the mind also seems to fail. The argument seems to best be structured as

1.) If the mind is physical then altering affects its abilities.
2.) Altering affects its abilities
3.) Therefore, the mind is physical.

This is the fallacy of affirming the consequent… and again this seems to permit the possibility that there are other reasons the mind could be affected by alteration.
If the correct formulation of the argument is a proper modus ponens:

1.) If altering affects the minds abilities, then the mind is physical
2.) Altering affects its abilities
3.) Therefore, the mind is physical.

Then the dualist could rephrase the argument and say that ‘mind is physical’ should be replaced by ‘mind utilises the physical brain.”

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