Malcolm Pollack comments:
1. It is plain that consciousness depends very sensitively on the physical state of the brain. Twiddling this or that neuron can induce memories, qualia, feelings, behavior, etc. Why is this the case, if our minds aren't simply something the brain is doing? Consciousness can be wiped out by tiny brain lesions, and personalities can be fundamentally altered by damage to the brain.
2. How is the mind connected to the brain? How is the causal linkage of a nonmaterial entity to the macroscopic physical world achieved, without violating all sorts of conservation principles?
3. Where does the mind arrive from? At what point in embryonic development does the "ensoulment" take place? At what point in our evolutionary history? And if you have an answer for that, why then?
All of these problems seem more tractable from a physicalist point of view, and as I have said, I have heard no offers of any explanations at all from the dualist camp.
Since blogposts are supposed to be short, I will answer only the first objection in this post.
Ad 1. There are certain data that no one will dispute, whether materialist, dualist, or idealist. Among these data are the various correlations to which Malcolm is referring: stimulate this portion of the visual cortex in such and such a way and the subject experiences phenomenal blue, etc. Intelligent dualists have always been aware of such basic facts as that drinking alcohol alters the quality of one's qualia, that a blow to the head can cause unconsciousness, and the like. It is important to realize that dualists are not in the business of denying obvious facts. The questions are not about the gross facts, but about their interpretation, about what they mean and what they entail. Hence dualists cannot be refuted by citing any obvious facts. Indeed, if dualism could be refuted by citing empirical facts, it would not be a philosophical thesis at all.
I stress this, because many don't understand it. They think that substance dualists deny facts that are well-known or scientifically established. One commenter, for example, compared substance dualists to flat-earthers — which of course shows total misunderstanding.
"Why is this the case, if our minds aren't simply something the brain is doing?" Because it could be the case even if our minds are not simply something the brain is doing. If substance dualism is true, then the mind is a substance. But note the following definition:
D1. X is a substance =df X is metaphysically capable of independent existence.
(D1) lays down what is meant by 'substance' in discussions about substance dualism in the philosophy of mind. That and that alone is what is meant by the term.
Note also that 'substance' has a half-dozen or so meanings and that in this context, 'substance' does not mean stuff. Thus the dualist cannot be blown out of the water by some such cheapshot as saying that he is committed to something self-contradictory like immaterial matter. (Not that Malcolm would reach for such a cheapshot.)
So for the dualist, the mind can exist without being embodied. But my mind, with which I am rather well acquainted, is an embodied mind. It is embodied as a matter of contingent fact, though not as a matter of metaphysical necessity. So it is not surprising that what goes on in my mind affects and is affected by what goes on in my brain and central nervous system. It is not surprising that the states of an embodied mind will be affected by alcohol in the bloodstream. In general, it is not suprising that (some) changes in the brain will bring about changes in the mind.
Since the facts that Malcolm adduces can be explained both materialistically and dualistically,, his adducing of said facts does not support materialism over dualism. Since the facts are consistent with both schemes, they do not entail either scheme.
So what Malcolm says in #1 is not a good reason to reject dualism. Of course, what I said in rebuttal does not provide a good positive reason to accept dualism over materialism. What I have done is merely remove a threat to the rationality of dualist belief.
By your definition of "substance", wouldn't anything that could be the sole occupant of a logically possible world be a substance? That would include things like any particular square, table, or logical-mathematical abstraction that is the sole entity in a language. I only say this because this is both an extremely weak claim, and it seems to distort the word "substance" as it has traditionally been used, namely, as a useless nonsense word of pre-Vienna Circle/Russell metaphysics. And at any rate, I have a question: Is there such a thing as two objects like "the notebook I'm looking at in world W at time t", "quale z in the actual world", and "brain-state/process x in the actual world" being contingently identical? If so, then I would be tempted to say that most physicalists (if they don't deny qualia or some other phenomenological primitive in the first place, which is probably silly) are saying only that qualia are identical to brain-states/processes in the actual world, all reasonably close possible worlds, and all "nomologically possible" worlds (if you don't object to the turn of phrase). Maybe - if the notion of contingent identity for entities like these (as opposed to "9" and "the number of planets") is sound. Then I would consider giving physicalism another chance, although I still really doubt that qualia are identical to brain-states/processes.
Two. Sometimes philosophical claims do make kinds of empirical predictions. Oxford guys like Austin and Ryle certainly made empirical predictions about the way people use words, although they might not have been philosophers proper in that capacity. More obviously, I could imagine the following conversation taking place between two of Zeno's pupils in the days of Aristotelian logic:
Glaucon: Zeno's got a hell of an argument going for him. Now we know that motion can't exist and logic work.
Philodemus: Yeah. Too bad motion doesn't exist.
Glaucon: Oh, no! Motion obviously exists, just look around you. It's the logic that doesn't work.
Etc.
Philodemus is interpreting Zeno's argument as a scientific prediction, rather than a comment about Aristotelian logic (or infinity, for that matter). For him, Zeno's argument would be wrong if motion exists - he just happens to have deluded himself into thinking that motion exists. Likewise, Glaucon uses the fact that motion exists in his rebuttal. Empirical facts, albeit those of the incredibly broad variety, do sometimes decide philosophical questions.
In Blondel's book he suggests that voluntary action rises because there is a moment for reflection between the impulse and the act. He also seems to be implying that this initial will to will is from God and returns to God. Now, just a lot of speculation -you can tell me if it makes any sense.
What if this impulse was God's eternal action which he gives to us as we would pass a force to a ball by pushing it. It is life. (What is life? Don't we recognize life by the very fact that it is activity different from that which is exibited in dead matter? unpredictible, indeterminate?) This eternal, vital force in conjunction with the human form has within it the seed of consciousness, will, love, all that makes us human. However, for this eternal force to develop voluntarily, for there to be a moment of reflection between action and act, it must necessarily exist within matter and within time. This delay between action and act, this chance for indeterminite action is caused by the action being bound by the law of matter as it travels within the body through either electrical or chemical means. If this action existed in eternity there would be no such delay.
I have been doing some research into learning and brain development. Here are some quotes
"1. Learning changes the physical structure of the brain.
2. These structural changes alter the functional organization of the brain; in other words, learning organizes and reorganizes the brain.
3. Different parts of the brain may be ready to learn at different times."
"Overall, neuroscience research confirms the important role that experience plays in building the structure of the mind by modifying the structures of the brain: development is not solely the unfolding of preprogrammed patterns. "
If I am following this correctly it is saying that the brain builds itself through the intermediary of action. What if at the end of this process, this action now fully conscious and aware, having formed itself, enters back into the action of God? Tranfers its center of being from finite mind to God's eternal substance? (I am assuming here that God consists of both substance and action) It seems to me this completely avoids the problem of substance dualism while keeping the necessary theological concepts of our person and 'being'. We are ourselves but we are united with God.
Lots of specualtion. I am currently working on exploring this theory through the medium of perception and the will to knowledge (rather than Blondel's concept of the will to will). What I came up with so far philosophically as the necessary progress of knowledge seems to fit in nicely with the theories of learning that I have been reading about. Does this make sense? Do you see any immediate problems with it?
My thoughts, so far, on this one:
First, I appreciate your making clear exactly what you mean by "substance". And you are right, I wouldn't have gone for the cheap shot you mentioned, except to get sloppy thinkers to define their terms, which is unnecessary in here.
I agree that a disembodied mind is conceptually possible, and that I cannot refute dualism at that level simply by raising issues that affect only embodied minds. I will say, though, that believing that disembodied minds actually exist, or even that they can actually exist in this world, as opposed to merely being imaginable, is an act of faith, given that the only minds we ever run into are the embodied ones. (Alleged personal dialogues with God or ghosts are exceptions, I suppose, but don't carry over well into objective discourse.)
But if we are going to believe in a dualistic account of embodied minds, we want a bit more than a defense of the metaphysical possibility of dualism generally; there are now practical questions to answer. So while I agree that my objections in 1) are not a reason to reject dualism in toto, they still want answering as far as our own situation is concerned. And 2), which is really an extension of 1), looms large.
Malcolm,
I offered some dualist answers to these questions recently both here and on your blog (from a parallelist perspective). You may not like the answers I proposed, but to suggest that you haven't even heard of any explanations from the dualist camp is to be either forgetful or disingenuous.
I wasn't sure you still wanted to defend that particular line of argument, but it was wrong of me not to mention it.
There is a general problem with all of these dualistic arguments - they seem always to take the form "I just know Mind is special somehow, and couldn't possibly be merely an emergent property of matter in complex action", and then proceed to make outstandingly unfalsifiable assertions.
Just what is so falsifiable about your claim that someday, somehow, someone will explain how mental properties can arise from physics? You've had 200 years; how much longer until we can say that this hypothesis has been falsified?
Furthermore, how is our epistemology of mind any different from the epistemology of, say, mathematics? Isn't it the case that we just know that a mathematical induction is true? Yet you could bring against mathematical induction the same sorts of objections you have been making against mental realism: an insistence that it might be false even though you can't explain how it could be.
You yourself, like all of us, have many firm beliefs that are based on much less firm grounds than introspective analysis.
Frankly --and I don't want to sound patronizing here, but-- I suspect that you, like most physicalists, are laboring under the misconception that Bill discusses in his post about Dennett. You are thinking of the mental as being simply another physics, more tenuous, less accessible, maybe in a wierd dimension somewhere.
But that is not what it is. The mental is nothing more than what it appears to be. Thoughts aren't mental objects, with mental mass, produced from mental raw materials and moved by mental energy. They are simply what they are, and no more. When I say that a thought T is "about" object X, I don't mean that there is some mysterious line of mental force connecting T with X. I just mean that T is about X.
Your scientific training has led you astray with the promise that everything can be fit into a clockwork world where everything is composed of smaller things and where every event has a cause based on masses and forces. Some things do not fit that model.
Hi Dave - one drawback of commenting on other people's blogs is that you often don't know that someone has responded to you. I didn't see this one until today.
You must have misunderstood something here: I have never suggested, as a falisifiable scientific hypothesis, that mind will one day be reducible to physics. Indeed, such a hypothesis would be by its very nature unfalsifiable. It is nothing more than my opinion, which I hold for reasons that I have made abundantly clear, and is a matter upon which reasonable people may, and do, differ. Scientific inquiry proceeds at its own pace. For that matter, why draw the line at 200 years? Descartes addressed the problem almost 400 years ago, and it has troubled philosophers for millennia.
Meanwhile, mathematical induction is another matter altogether. Mathematical induction is true by definition, as declared in the Principle Of Mathematical Induction:
If p(1) is true and, for each integer, p(k+1) is true whenever p(k) is true then p(n) is true for all.
2. Disallowing comments from a particular person, or deleting an offensive, off-topic, or otherwise substandard comment, has nothing to do with censorship. People who think otherwise confuse censorship with lack of sponsorship. I am under an obligation not to interfere with anyone's exercise of legitimate free speech rights. But I am not under any obligation to aid and abet anyone's exercise of free speech rights, legitimate or illegitimate.
3. The Comments area is not an open forum for anyone to say anything about any topic. As the name implies, it is primarily for commenting on the author(s)' posts. But to comment on them, one must have read them. And if I have spent three hours on a post, a reader will not understand it in thirty seconds. Secondarily, the Comments area is to facilitate civil discussion between and among commenters as long as the discussion remains on-topic.
4. Some undesirables: The skimmers, those who cannot read but only read-in. The sophists who, abusing argument, argue for the sake of argument. The ideologues, those who are out for power, not truth. The uncivil. The illogical. The politically correct. Worst of all, perhaps, are those who exemplify the anti-Socratic property: those who think they know what they don't know. If Socrates was famous for his learned ignorance, these types are marked by their ignorant unlearnededness.