Monday, August 21, 2006
Why the old standard argument against substance dualism begs the question
Bill Vallicella issues a charge of begging the question against the argument that dualistic interactionism can't be true because we cannot see how the soul could interact with the body.
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6 comments:
Is it begging the question to rule out my cat having caused the 9/11 destruction through the power of her mind, just because there is no evidence for it, and we can see evidence of planes having caused the destruction?
Assuming the body is made out of material, what evidence does Victor have that the path of an atom can be affected by anything other than a material entity?
Valicella responds to one argument (violation of certain conservation laws), while Sober's claim is about the spatiality of causal relations, not violation of conservation laws.
Valicella seems to have quoted the wrong section of Sober or something.
At any rate, is there any interactionist dualist who would not claim that the laws of physics are violated when the mind interacts with the physical world?
My pastor told me that beer contains millions of little baby demons (they're disguised as bubbles), and those demons, once ingested into the body, are given the keys to the drinker's soul where they invite themselves to "party". The result is that your soul is destablized (that's why you feel "tipsy" and all that), and if you do this repeatedly, the baby demons can grow into adult demons, and it could take a Holy Ghost-filled exorcist to remove them once and for all. Needless to say, it's a very dangerous habit, drinking.
Beer works?
The beer question is acutally a good one. The questions have centered on how the mind can affects the body. The reverse is also an issue, who the body affects the mind. I would prefer a proposal that emphasizes the interdependency of the mind and the body. We sometimes assume that the mind can more easily survive separate from the body. New Testament ideas like a resurrection body and a temporary "spiritual" body issued while awaiting a ressurection body support a mind/body interdependence.
Is it only the human brain that needs to interact with a supernatural mind?
How do all those other brains in nature function then?
And if all those other brains in nature can function without needing a supernatural mind to direct them, could a human mind also function without an immaterial mind directing it?
Assuming that all human brains are being directed by individual supernatural minds, what about ingrained habits, both physical and mental that seem to take no thought at all?
Where does the supernatural mind goes when you sleep dreamlessly?
What is the supernatural mind doing the moment before you have a conscious thought or right before you think or speak a word?
Assuming that all human brains are channelling a supernatural mind, could some people have lost their supernatural mind and be running on natural automatic brain power alone? Where are their supernatural minds when that happens?
Does a split-brain patient have two supernatural minds, one for each hemisphere of their split-brain? I ask that because experimental evidence has not discovered any evidence that the split-hemispheres of the split-brain patients can communicate with one another. In fact sometimes they are at odds, one hand opening a door, the other slamming it shut, one hand pulling up his trousers to go to work, the other pulling them down. Yet there is plenty of evidence that consciousness exists in both hemispheres. Even the hemisphere that cannot speak can point to objects or photos or pictures in answer to questions. And some split-brain patients have a normally silent hemisphere that can even speak a little, at least one word replies.
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