Lets talk about dualism

[spartanII]

I haven't posted here on a while, been snooping around not signed in, reading different topics but haven't posted in a while... anyways i'm wondering about dualism...I've thought about it for a while and what are some reasons for it/against it?
One of the things i wonder about is if you were in a car wreck and have brain damage, what does this say about dualism? Once we look into things like the forms and how logic is are we just looking into things too deep?

Here are some objections to dualism....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dualism_(p ... st_dualism

If you have the time to read them then i'll post them. If you could, quote them and reply to each thing with an objection. Thanks

[*]One argument against Dualism is with regard to causal interaction. If consciousness (the mind) can exist independently of physical reality (the brain), one must explain how physical memories are created concerning consciousness. Dualism must therefore explain how consciousness affects physical reality. One of the main objections to dualistic interactionism is lack of explanation of how the material and immaterial are able to interact. Varieties of dualism according to which an immaterial mind causally affects the material body and vice-versa have come under strenuous attack from different quarters, especially in the 20th century. Critics of dualism have often asked how something totally immaterial can affect something totally material - this is the basic problem of causal interaction.
First, it is not clear where the interaction would take place. For example, burning one's fingers causes pain. Apparently there is some chain of events, leading from the burning of skin, to the stimulation of nerve endings, to something happening in the peripheral nerves of one's body that lead to one's brain, to something happening in a particular part of one's brain, and finally resulting in the sensation of pain. But pain is not supposed to be spatially locatable. It might be responded that the pain "takes place in the brain." But, intuitively, pains are not located anywhere. This may not be a devastating criticism. However, there is a second problem about the interaction. Namely, the question of how the interaction takes place, where in dualism 'the mind' is assumed to be non physical and by definition outside of the realm of science. The mechanism which explains the connection between the mental and the physical would therefore be a philosophical proposition as compared to a scientific theory. For example, compare such a mechanism to a physical mechanism that is well understood. Take a very simple causal relation, such as when a cue ball strikes an eight ball and causes it to go into the pocket. What happens in this case is that the cue ball has a certain amount of momentum as its mass moves across the pool table with a certain velocity, and then that momentum is transferred to the eight ball, which then heads toward the pocket. Compare this to the situation in the brain, where one wants to say that a decision causes some neurons to fire and thus causes a body to move across the room. The intention to "cross the room now" is a mental event and, as such, it does not have physical properties such as force. If it has no force, then it would seem that it could not possibly cause any neuron to fire. However, with Dualism, an explanation is required of how something without any physical properties has physical effects.


[*] In instances of some sort of brain damage (e.g. caused by automobile accidents, drug abuse, pathological diseases, etc.), it is always the case that the mental substance and/or properties of the person are significantly changed or compromised. If the mind were a completely separate substance from the brain, how could it be possible that every single time the brain is injured, the mind is also injured? Indeed, it is very frequently the case that one can even predict and explain the kind of mental or psychological deterioration or change that human beings will undergo when specific parts of their brains are damaged. So the question for the dualist to try to confront is how can all of this be explained if the mind is a separate and immaterial substance from, or if its properties are ontologically independent of, the brain.

[*]Another common argument against dualism consists in the idea that since human beings (both phylogenetically and ontogenetically) begin their existence as entirely physical or material entities and since nothing outside of the domain of the physical is added later on in the course of development, then we must necessarily end up being fully developed material beings. Phylogenetically, the human species evolved, as did all other species, from a single cell made up of matter. Since all the events that later occurred which ended up in the formation of our species can be explained through the processes of random mutation and natural selection, the difficulty for the dualist is to explain where and why there could have intervened some non-material, non-physical event in this process of natural evolution. Ontogenetically, we begin life as a simple fertilized ovum. There is nothing non-material or mentalistic involved in conception, the formation of the blastula, the gastrula, and so on. Our development can be explained entirely in terms of the accumulation of matter through the processes of nutrition. The postulation of a non-physical mind would seem superfluous.

[*]The decisions that a person makes can, in at least some contexts, be detected up to 10 seconds earlier by means of scanning their brain activity.[42] Mental imagery can also be detected[43]

[*]The argument from simplicity is probably the simplest and also the most common form of argument against dualism of the mental. The dualist is always faced with the question of why anyone should find it necessary to believe in the existence of two, ontologically distinct, entities (mind and brain), when it seems possible and would make for a simpler thesis to test against scientific evidence, to explain the same events and properties in terms of one. It is a heuristic principle in science and philosophy not to assume the existence of more entities than is necessary for clear explanation and prediction

[narnia4]

In a rush at the moment, but who says that the mind is completely separate from the brain? Everyone knows (and its been known for centuries) that there is a link between brain activity and mind activity, but that doesn't show that mind/brain activity are exactly the same. The relationship between the mind and brain have been explained in many different ways other than physicalism, however.

The same sort of reasoning follows with many of the other arguments against dualism. When it comes down to it there is very few successful arguments AGAINST dualism, so it comes down to whether there are any successful arguments for dualism given that we all accept that there is a material aspect to the brain. I think there are.

I mentioned on another thread that I've been reading some Feser, he has plenty of posts on his blog talking about dualism and defending "hylemorphic dualism". Here is one article on it- http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2011/01 ... abble.html

[Kurieuo]

I wrote an essay some time ago now, but it deals with some of the things you raise so you should find it interesting: Case for Dualism