Do these properties make a difference in what is caused to occur? If the non-physical properties cause anything, then can the substance that has the properties be a genuinely physical substance? If they don’t make a difference, then does our mental states have anything to do with what we actually do?
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This is the most fatal objection to typical property dualism imho (together with the argument from multiple realizability). Chalmers admits in his book 'The Concious Mind' that the property dualistic view that he is arguing for appears to be one of epiphenomenalism but tries to salvage it by arguing that we do not really understand causality so it might turn out ok in the end after all.
If property dualism is indeed epiphenomenalistic (the physical is causally closed) then talking about pain will have nothing to do with the experience of pain since the experience cannot make any changes in the sounds used for talking.
Even worse, on epiphenomenalism the experience of pain could not have evolved since evolution can only select for that which can cause changes in fitness, the epiphenomenal cannot do this so it is then, on evolution, a random event that just happen to come at some events.
So, on this view, we are left with the entirety of the human conscious experience being a product of something other then evolution. This might strike some naturalists as a bit of a high price to pay.
Ah well, at least the property dualists have the balls to propose something, unlike the emergent materialists who refuse to define what the words emergent and material even mean.
Ah well, at least the property dualists have the balls to propose something, unlike the emergent materialists who refuse to define what the words emergent and material even mean.
Aren´t many property dualists in some sense also 'emergent materialists'? They say that the non-physical properties 'emerged' from physical processes in the course of evolution.
The other possibility is some kind of panpsychism, such as Strawson, Nagel and Chalmers have suggested.
Things become fuzzy: you can imagine stripping away the mental features while leaving the physical features the same, but that doesn't mean that's how nature works. This, I admit, is the biggest weakness for my position. I tend to have to choose epiphenomenalism (yuck) versus waving toward causality and giving it lip service.
This is what tempts me to become either a full-blown vulgar materialist wrt consciousness (not abstracta), or maybe even a substance dualist (not that they have no problems with causality!).
Either Mind exists, or it doesn't.
There are sound reasons to think Mind does exist (language, reason, mathematics,etc).
Yet a disembodied ghost-Mind seems inconceivable (tho perhaps not impossible). Ie, Mind--human thinking-- appears to be brain dependent.
Ergo....matter thinks! (in the form of human neurology at the very least). Call that non-epiphenomenal property dualism.
Are there non-physical things other than mind that are causal? Is information more than math?
Approximately one-twentieth of one percent of our bodies is replaced each day, through completely natural processes. At the end of 7 to 8 years, not a single atom remains in our physical selves that was there at the start of that period. Every particle of my today's physical self was either dirt, water, air, or another living organism 7 years ago. But I am demonstrably not a new person - I am the same Bob Prokop who was here eight, 10, or even 60 years ago, despite the fact that no trace of the original physical self remains. (I'd love to see someone try such a defense in court: "Your Honor, that wasn't me who committed that crime eight years ago. I wasn't even here. It was someone else with the same name!")
If that ain't proof of the existence of mind, or even of the soul, I don't know what is!
For me, there are properties of physical things individually, and then there are properties of patterns and interactions of physical things. The first type can not be mental properties, the second type can be.
To answer the original post:
Yes, these second sorts of properties can create effects in concert that the first sort of properties can not. The substance in question is still a genuinely physical substance.
The substance in question is still a genuinely physical substance.
LOL.
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