Questions tagged [dualism]
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How can substance dualism survive the arguments from neuroscience?
On the Wikipedia page for Mind-body dualism, one of the arguments against dualism is neuroscience.
In some contexts, the decisions that a person makes can be detected up to 10 seconds in advance by ...
17
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3answers
6k views
What is the modern solution to the mind-body problem for those who still hold the mind is separate?
René Descartes gave us the problem of how the mind interacts with the body in its modern formulation. Essentially, he asked how the incorporeal mind was able to influence the material body. He also ...
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12answers
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Can someone be an atheist and subscribe to substance dualism at the same time?
I consider myself to be firmly in the atheist camp. None of the arguments for the existence of a higher being or prime mover convince me, let alone attempts at proving the existence of the old God of ...
9
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4answers
951 views
The Emperor's New Mind and Free Will
A good few years ago I read The Emperor's New Mind by Roger Penrose. Having recently read some philosopy primers I was wondering about the links between this book and the question of free will.
From ...
9
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1answer
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Why does Chalmers' argument about “the hard problem” not entail idealism?
Chalmers famously argues in Facing Up to the Problem of Consciousness:
At the end of the day, the same criticism applies to any purely physical account of consciousness. For any physical process we ...
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5answers
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How do modern dualists explain the mind-body interaction?
A serious challenge for dualism is explaining how mind and body interact if they are made of ontologically different substances, and more specifically how mental phenomena can causally drive bodily ...
8
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263 views
The demarcation problem and the materialism/dualism debate?
Presumably the end game of dualist philosophers is to definitively prove the existence of ontologically separate mental states which cannot be reduced to brain states. If they succeed in doing so, ...
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Contemporary proponents of Cartesian dualism
I have to find examples of contemporary philosophers who accept Cartesian dualism. Who would be the most important proponent? While philosophers who reject physicalism (e.g. David Chalmers, Thomas ...
8
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3answers
550 views
For Kierkegaard, how does being “animal” and “rational” compel us to invent meaning?
I'm working through "Alienation and Freedom" by Richard Schmitt right now.
In explaining alienation and it's precondition, he posits:
"The need for infusing one's life with meaning arises, as ...
7
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5answers
654 views
Are there philosophies that call for things which are not mind nor matter?
Physicalism is the idea that everything is matter. Idealism is the idea that everything is made up of a mental substance. Dualism claims that there are both matter and mind in the universe.
It ...
7
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6answers
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What are the problems with the argument for the mind-body dualism from immateriality of thoughts?
I have started studying philosophy of mind and I am currently reading an introduction to the field. The first topic that is presented in the book is dualism of the Cartesian brand, and the case for it ...
7
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1answer
756 views
Are there any philosophical writings/works about Fourier transforms?
I am interested in reading about possible meaning and implications of the time-frequency duality in Fourier transforms and the uncertainty principle (not necessarily the usually discussed Heisenberg ...
7
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260 views
Physicalism versus dualism: is it reasonable to assign a burden of proof to one party?
I've been watching some video lectures online, and in some of the videos, the professor argues essentially as follows:
Both the dualist and the physicalist believe in the body. This is
status quo....
7
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3answers
974 views
How did Kant “undermine the soul”?
In the beginning of William James' 1904 paper "Does 'Consciousness' Exist?" he states the following:
At first, 'spirit and matter,' 'soul and body,' stood for a pair of equipollent substances quite ...
6
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3answers
268 views
Is there any way to have substance dualism without invoking God?
Can one solve these objections to substance dualism without invoking divine intervention?
1.Causal interaction
2.Brain damage affects mind
3.Why do only living things with brains have consciousness?...
6
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2answers
129 views
Dualism appears in many places. Is there a theory why?
Big Questions often resolve themselves into two camps, such as between rationalism and empiricism. This happens when some sticking point is reached that cannot be resolved.
Why is it so common for ...
6
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1answer
245 views
Concepts of state and transition as used by Kierkegaard
While reading Søren Kierkegaard's "The Concept of Anxiety", I asked myself how much of the temporal interpretation of dialectic and the interaction between state and transition (leap) are original to ...
6
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6answers
329 views
The experience of simultaneously holding very different interpretations of reality
Disclaimer: I am describing here something that's been my personal perception/interpretation/mode of being for many many years. I may not (probably don't) know the correct terminology, or whether this ...
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6answers
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Is any aspect of the supernatural testable? What level of proof is possible for the supernatural?
Assume the supernatural does exist, and consists of beings/forces that can interact with our natural universe in ways that are contrary to the natural laws of this universe (at least as we know them).
...
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5answers
833 views
How can substance dualism (Cartesian) explain how the mind is affected from brain damage?
One of the biggest arguments against substance dualism is the fact that when the brain is damaged, the mind is altered. If the brain and mind are two different substances, the mind should not be ...
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2answers
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What is the difference between functionalism and property dualism?
Functionalism and property dualism are both physicalist theories of the mind in that they don't admit any substances other than physical substance.
Property dualism holds that mental states are non-...
4
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2answers
83 views
According to Hasker's emergent dualism, why does the mind have to be spatial?
https://www.newdualism.org/papers/F.Dilley/Dilley-faithphil_2003.pdf
I was reading Dilley's critique on the emergent dualism view, and it seems to me that the biggest reason to reject Hasker's view ...
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Would a truly objective system of ethics amount to a form of dualism?
Per Hume's is-ought problem, most people consider ethical questions to be independent of empirical facts.
The physicalist/materialist world-view is based on the idea that only thing that exists are ...
4
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1answer
253 views
Imagine that you look at yourself as a cat, what do you think of your own behavior?
I recently thought very much about the life of mammals who live in our cities, such as cats, and dogs.
To see if I will find a philosophy in this, because, as we know, the Nature Is Our Best Teacher!....
4
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1answer
828 views
Is the Phaedo relevant to a materialist?
I've just finished reading the Phaedo, and I'm wondering if one does not buy into the mind/body dualism arguments that Socrates advances in the dialogue, is there still anything to learned from it? Is ...
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2answers
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How is non-reductive materialism different from dualism?
Non-reductive materialism (or materialism) is considered a from of monism, in the sense that ontologically everything is considered to be made of physical substances. It is non-reductive only in that ...
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3answers
696 views
Hubert Dreyfus & Heidegger - is Heidegger a dualist?
Heidegger rejects Cartesian dualism... but this video with Hubert Dreyfus confuses me:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G24JBUh4yVg
At 9:00, he implies that according to Heidegger, physics can't ...
3
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4answers
104 views
Was the notion of mind-body dualism invented, or at least popularized, by Rene Descartes?
This dualism seems so compelling (from a layman’s perspective) that it seems difficult to imagine that Descartes invented or even popularized it. For instance, people kept using words like “soul” to ...
3
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4answers
227 views
Logical Atomism and the divisibility of ideas?
Crucial to DesCartes' argument for dualism, is that matter and mind are different because matter has extension and thoughts don't. Matter can be divided (infinitely?) into smaller parts, which will ...
3
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2answers
298 views
What would non-reductive physicalists say about the mind and teleportation? [closed]
Non-reductive physicalists have a view in dualism that creates an idea of mental properties that can be mapped to neurobiological properties, but said mental properties are not ontologically reduced ...
3
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2answers
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If materialism is true, then what accounts for pleasure and pain?
[I went and wrote a long answer to a question that was in the interim deleted, so rather than waste that, I thought I'd do my best to reproduce it here. Credit to Micheal Lee for the original, some ...
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Can theism be reconciled with the apparent state of dualism?
The SEP states that "dualism has come upon hard times lately, and is widely regarded as being discredited."
It seems to me that most theists (I'm thinking mostly of Christians here) accept dualism to ...
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1answer
130 views
What is the argument posed by Katherine Hayles in “The Condition of Virtuality” as to the relation between matter and virtuality and why?
I am learning in class of the influence the new media have on old-aged dichotomies such as matter-mind, subject-object and their like. Our new-media teacher asked us to read the paper "The ...
3
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1answer
359 views
How does Descartes argue that mind and body are different substances if mind can exist without a body?
How does Descartes argue that mind and body are different substances if mind can exist without a body? I think he does this in meditation II
Descartes’ argument so far is that minds can exist ...
3
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2answers
329 views
Cartesian dualist and dualist
I was taught that Cartesian dualists were those who believe strongly that the mind and the body are entirely two separate entities while a dualist believes the same but also believes that the mind and ...
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523 views
Evidence Against Dualism from Neuroscience
In this video, Patricia Churchland announced that the data from neuroscience has made it clear that there is no soul, immaterial mind, or other "spooky stuff." I was wondering if anyone is aware of a ...
3
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1answer
232 views
Why is mind/body duality so widely accepted?
It seems strange that Cartesian mind/body duality is so widely accepted, given that it leads to scepticism around the possibility of human knowledge.
Why is it so widely accepted, and how do its ...
3
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2answers
256 views
Debate on dualism, physicalism. etc in philosophy of mind
(I do not have a philosophy background but I do read philosophy myself.)
I have read some review papers of emergence theory, where philosophy of mind is a major battle ground. I find an absence of a ...
3
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2answers
162 views
Can substance dualism (Cartesian) account for split consciousness?
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-superhuman-mind/201211/split-brains
A long time ago neuroscientists discovered that when a persons brain is split their consciousness splits as well. Some ...
3
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2answers
132 views
If morality comes from our body, why does it contradict it?
Where does morality come from? One possible answer is that morality, as everything else, is a byproduct of interactions between physical matter. The same interactions that came together to produce our ...
3
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1answer
521 views
How did Wittgenstein reject the Cogito or Cartesian dualism? Can I get the specific sources?
I have heard of the fact that Wittgenstein rejected Cartesianism by the Private Language Argument. But the connections are not clear for me. Also I'd like to know if there is any other piece of ...
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0answers
119 views
Does neurorealism imply a fear of Cartesian dualism that philosophy should rightly address? [closed]
Recently Nature published a computer-generated image of the brain sprinkled with colorful words representing a semantic map, i.e., parts of the brain cortex that responded to various spoken words ...
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2answers
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How do res cogitans and res extensa interact?
In all religions that ever existed, there is a soul and a God - two intangible things. From physics we know that there is no difference between a particle without the electrical charge, mass and ...
2
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3answers
133 views
Does sensory information exist, and do philosophers have a name for it?
Are there really sensory sensations such as sight, hearing, tactile sensations, smell, taste, and umami? In other words, are those sensations or sense-data real, and if they are not real physically, ...
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5answers
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Is there a flaw in Descartes' “clear and distinct” argument?
Is there a flaw in Descartes' "clear and distinct" argument regarding the separation of mind and body? I think that there is a flaw in the argument. I got this idea from an online lecture. Here is my ...
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2answers
249 views
Isn't Mind–body dualism the result of a Complex Universe?
Mind–body dualism, or mind–body duality, is a view in the philosophy of mind that mental phenomena are, in some respects, non-physical, or that the mind and body are distinct and separable.
Isn't ...
2
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1answer
153 views
Am I not a material thing?
I can not doubt that I exist. I can doubt that any material thing exists. Therefore, I am not a material thing
This is a redux of Descartes's modal argument for dualism (e.g. in second and sixth ...
2
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1answer
376 views
Does dualism in conjunction with strong AI imply pan-psychism?
Let's assume that at some hypothetical point in the future, we arrive at two results:
Based on results like DesCartes or Kripke's, philosophers and logicians arrive at a conclusive proof in favor of ...
2
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1answer
183 views
What does it mean to say what happens in your experience is inside your mind in a way in which what happens in your brain is not?
"If what happens in your experience is inside your mind in a way in
which what happens in your brain is not, it looks as though your
experiences and other mental states can't just be physical ...
2
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1answer
260 views
Is Reality an intersection of Incompatible Ontologies?
Empiricists do not ask questions about the ontological status of mathematical or logical structures. Idealists don't explain how Ideas are developed, or how technological advancement in general takes ...
