Dualism?

So what's really going on?

Moderators: AMod, iMod

User avatar
Terrapin Station
Posts: 4548
Joined: Wed Aug 03, 2016 7:18 pm
Location: NYC Man

Re: Dualism?

Post by Terrapin Station »

Philosophy Explorer wrote:Since brains is made of subatomic particles, that meets your objection unless you want to put up silly nonargumentative arguments.

PhilX
So you're claiming that https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_tunnelling claims that there simply are no solids?

In fact, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_tunnelling only mentions the word "solid" three times. One occurrence is this: "The study of semiconductors and the development of transistors and diodes led to the acceptance of electron tunnelling in solids by 1957." Well, that wouldn't make too much sense if it were claiming that there simply are no solids, would it?

The second occurrence is for a graphic, where it mentions what the solid lines represent. So that's not even the same sense of "solid."

The third and final occurrence of "solid" in that article is "In acoustics, medium A may be a liquid or gas and medium B a solid," which again would make zero sense if the point being made (or a point being made) were that there simply are no solids. Medium B can't very well be a solid if there are no such things.

So instead of continuing to bs, let's hear what in the world that article is supposed to have to do with a claim that there simply are no solids.
Last edited by Terrapin Station on Thu Aug 11, 2016 9:53 pm, edited 3 times in total.
Philosophy Explorer
Posts: 5621
Joined: Sun Aug 31, 2014 7:39 am

Re: Dualism?

Post by Philosophy Explorer »

Terrapin Station wrote:
Philosophy Explorer wrote:Since brains is made of subatomic particles, that meets your objection unless you want to put up silly nonargumentative arguments.

PhilX
So you're claiming that https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_tunnelling claims that there simply are no solids?
That and other things I've read or heard.

PhilX
User avatar
Terrapin Station
Posts: 4548
Joined: Wed Aug 03, 2016 7:18 pm
Location: NYC Man

Re: Dualism?

Post by Terrapin Station »

Philosophy Explorer wrote:
Terrapin Station wrote:
Philosophy Explorer wrote:Since brains is made of subatomic particles, that meets your objection unless you want to put up silly nonargumentative arguments.

PhilX
So you're claiming that https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_tunnelling claims that there simply are no solids?
That and other things I've read or heard.

PhilX
Right. And where exactly does it claim this? (See my edits to the previous post, too, by the way.)

I don't know why I'm bothering really. You're full of shit. You're dishonest (or rather ignorant and dim--take your pick). And you're just playing a game really. I'm here because I'm interested in serious discussion rather.
Philosophy Explorer
Posts: 5621
Joined: Sun Aug 31, 2014 7:39 am

Re: Dualism?

Post by Philosophy Explorer »

Terrapin Station wrote:
Philosophy Explorer wrote:
Terrapin Station wrote:So you're claiming that https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_tunnelling claims that there simply are no solids?
That and other things I've read or heard.

PhilX
Right. And where exactly does it claim this? (See my edits to the previous post, too, by the way.)

I don't know why I'm bothering really. You're full of shit. You're dishonest (or rather ignorant and dim--take your pick). And you're just playing a game really. I'm here because I'm interested in serious discussion rather.
You're the one that's full of shit. Pretending to put up arguments that are worthless. Can't put up any arguments showing there are real solid objects. You're the one playing games. (btw you subscribe to a philosophy termed materialism which has been discredited a long time ago).

PhilX
User avatar
Terrapin Station
Posts: 4548
Joined: Wed Aug 03, 2016 7:18 pm
Location: NYC Man

Re: Dualism?

Post by Terrapin Station »

PhilX, I like how you answered "And where exactly does it claim this?"

That's because the answer is, "It doesn't claim anything like that at all."

It seems like basically what you've done is read enough about qm to go, "Wow, man, like qm says some weird shit that's completely counterintuitive to how I thought about the world before; things aren't even solid in the way I thought they were, which means that they're not solid at all!" and then you figured that any random thing about qm was good enough to support this. :lol:
Philosophy Explorer
Posts: 5621
Joined: Sun Aug 31, 2014 7:39 am

Re: Dualism?

Post by Philosophy Explorer »

Terrapin Station wrote:PhilX, I like how you answered "And where exactly does it claim this?"

That's because the answer is, "It doesn't claim anything like that at all."
Read it again because you're the one who said it.

Just to let you know, repeating arguments doesn't win debates on a thread.

PhilX
User avatar
henry quirk
Posts: 14706
Joined: Fri May 09, 2008 8:07 pm
Location: Right here, a little less busy.

Post by henry quirk »

"Why do people have to overcomplicate matters?"

You got that right.

Simply...

*Mind/self/I is what a brain of particular and peculiar complexity 'does', in the same way that legs 'do' walking. No one would consider walking as sumthin' to be examined apart from legs. No, we examine what legs 'do'. In the same way, it's wrong-headed to examine mind, or talk about mind, apart from brain.

I am a brain in a body in the world.

Simply...

*I'm typing this post with solid fingers...my solid fingers are poking away at an antiquated ipad which seems pretty solid too...as I poke away, my solid ass is plunked down on a solid bench in a solid resturant that offers wifi to customers.

I just seem to be surrounded by solids, to interact with solds, all the damned time, so: where my common sense and science diverge, science can take a long leap offa a short pier.
User avatar
Terrapin Station
Posts: 4548
Joined: Wed Aug 03, 2016 7:18 pm
Location: NYC Man

Re: Dualism?

Post by Terrapin Station »

Philosophy Explorer wrote:
Terrapin Station wrote:PhilX, I like how you answered "And where exactly does it claim this?"

That's because the answer is, "It doesn't claim anything like that at all."
Read it again because you're the one who said it.

Just to let you know, repeating arguments doesn't win debates on a thread.

PhilX
"I'm the one who said it"--?? What on Earth are you talking about?

You claimed that physics claims that brains are not solid(s). You said that the Wikipedia article you linked to was a reference to that claim. Well, I say that the Wikipedia article you linked to says nothing even remotely resembling "Brains are not solid(s)," or, "There are no solids." So the question you must answer is what in that article you take to be making either one of those claims.
Dalek Prime
Posts: 4922
Joined: Tue Apr 14, 2015 4:48 am
Location: Living in a tree with Polly.

Re: Dualism?

Post by Dalek Prime »

What I'd like to know is why you think what I originally said on consciousness had anything to do with whether the brain was a solid or not, Phil.
User avatar
Necromancer
Posts: 405
Joined: Thu Jul 30, 2015 12:30 am
Location: Metropolitan-Oslo, Norway, Europe
Contact:

Re: Dualism?

Post by Necromancer »

Van Lommel studies prove Dualism as well as other Near-Death phenomena. Final!

We have still to account for all that's going on in the World in terms of Near Death and it may be more fantastic than we think here and now even though death is so mundanely known to us in being a kind of end-state.

However, by intuition I find the soul more compelling wherever it goes after death, even as it goes to bed in its "mental-state-bed" in the World meant for souls and all else that exists, a kind of wider World than what we commonly know by sight and hearing. We must know it beyond death!

:)
Philosophy Explorer
Posts: 5621
Joined: Sun Aug 31, 2014 7:39 am

Re: Dualism?

Post by Philosophy Explorer »

Dalek Prime wrote:What I'd like to know is why you think what I originally said on consciousness had anything to do with whether the brain was a solid or not, Phil.
Consciousness or mind is often associated with the brain.
In this universe, the physicists say there is no real solid (due to QM) which of course includes the brain in that category. So if the brain is not solid, then how can the mind exist inside the brain 100% of the time (in fact, the brain isn't solid at any point in time which is true for any matter so it's pointless for Terrapin to require an article to mention the brain).

I hope this answers your question. I'm one who doesn't believe in duality.

PhilX
gurugeorge
Posts: 15
Joined: Wed Aug 03, 2016 2:42 pm

Re: Dualism?

Post by gurugeorge »

bahman wrote:
gurugeorge wrote:
bahman wrote: I was thinking about dualism recently and I find it problematic. Lets start with definition of dualism. Dualism is a system of belief which claims that both mind/soul and matter are real. Mind however is not material hence it does not have any location. The problem I am facing is how one can related one mind to one body.
As always with philosophy, it depends on what you mean by ...

It's possible that both mind and matter are real, but not of different substance, but more like two vastly different possible ways that substance can behave, two different styles of matter/energy behaviour.

If matter can be conscious, there's no problem.

But here it's interesting because there's a natural revulsion to thinking that matter might be conscious, because it seems like there's a different world "in here" than "out there", and that having "in-here-ness" is a vastly different sort of thing from existing physically, as a particular bundle of matter/energy.

Seems like - but is it?

Consider that we ordinarily use "consciousness" broadly in two distinct ways (at least, but let's focus on these two, as they are the senses that seem to be involved in these sorts of discussions).

In a public, third-person sense, we have no problem observing two physical objects, one of which is conscious of the other in the sense that it can avoid it or cleave to it, circle it circumspectly, bark at it, etc.

The other sense of "consciousness" is a private, first-person sense. Here it seems like being conscious is having phenomena.

In a wooly sort of way, we tie the two together - we think, vaguely, that avoiding things and cleaving to them in the public, third-person sense, just involves having an "inner life", that having an "inner life" is the means by which publicly observable things cleave to and avoid other publicly-observable things, and without an "inner life", a thing isn't properly conscious, even if it happens to cleave to and avoid things (that must be "programming", which is different from being conscious in the "inner" sense).

But what if we don't have an "inner life"? What if our having an "inner life" is an illusion to us, a mistake, in the same sense that a publicly-observable dog might mistake a publicly-observable stick for a publicly-observable bone? If all that's left is the publicly-observable cleaving to/avoiding behaviour, then the problem is in a sense solved, because there's no problem, there's only the one sense of consciousness that effectively refers to anything, the sense that refers to a type of behaviour of matter.

However, even if we say that inner life is an illusion, there must be some sort of basis for the illusory nature of it, and that basis must be physical, must be matter/energy.

Yes, the basis is physical, it is the physical interactions that cause and form the substance of sensory events, understood from a particular perspective. The illusion of inner life arises when objects causally interact with sensory organs and the brain systems relevant thereunto. At that moment of interaction, a physical thing exists that doesn't exist up until that moment of interaction and disappears with its ceasing, abstractly speaking, like the kind of "interference pattern" that appears when two waves interact on the water's surface.

One's "inner life", then, is just the existence of sequences of those unique matter/energy interactions. From the first-person perspective, they are not observed by anyone or anything (unless we slip back to third-person public language, in which case they are observed by you in an inoffensive, ordinary sense); they are not observed by anything "inside one's head", they don't appear to a point of view, they aren't contained in any sort of space-like container called "awareness", they just sheerly exist. And that is enough.

The illusion (remember, an illusion on a par with the kind of illusion we might observe when a dog mistakes a stick for a bone) is precisely that there is an inner haver of these events, which makes the experiences seem of a different order of being to those events we normally think of as external to us, matter/energy, physical, etc., when actually they are of the same order.

If it were not so, if they weren't of the same order, they couldn't be part of the same consciousness. If you introspect, you notice that both external, physical events and thoughts appear on the same level, or in the same "conscious space" (I use the metaphor here because it's convenient) - thoughts are vague, like echoes of sounds, you have itches, images, etc., all appearing quite alongside external physical objects.

Idealists think that's because external objects are mental, but it's the other way round, it's because internal objects are also physical, just like the external objects.
I am sorry but my problem is another thing: Consider a punch of people where each has a body and a mind. These means that we are dealing with a set of bodies and minds. There is however a problem heer: Accepting the fact that mind is not material then it has not location then how we can related a mind to very specific body?

Needless to say that I have problem with monism too. The problem is that mind in this system of belief mind emerges from biochemical and electromagnetical activities. This is problematic since it leads to epiphenomalism.

So I am here left in a situation that neither dualism nor monism can answer the question of what we really are.
Ah but it does relate specifically to your qualms. If having a mind isn't having an etherial thing that's qualitatively different from matter/energy, but rather being a particular bundle of matter/energy of a specific style of behaviour (more specifically, being the part of the bundle of matter/energy that's responsible for maintaining and steering the rest of it), then there's no problem.
Dalek Prime
Posts: 4922
Joined: Tue Apr 14, 2015 4:48 am
Location: Living in a tree with Polly.

Re: Dualism?

Post by Dalek Prime »

Philosophy Explorer wrote:
Dalek Prime wrote:What I'd like to know is why you think what I originally said on consciousness had anything to do with whether the brain was a solid or not, Phil.
Consciousness or mind is often associated with the brain.
In this universe, the physicists say there is no real solid (due to QM) which of course includes the brain in that category. So if the brain is not solid, then how can the mind exist inside the brain 100% of the time (in fact, the brain isn't solid at any point in time which is true for any matter so it's pointless for Terrapin to require an article to mention the brain).

I hope this answers your question. I'm one who doesn't believe in duality.

PhilX
Well, that not what you seem to be saying, if you then have to ask how the mind can be situated in the brain 100℅ of the time. It doesn't go anywhere else, Phil.
Philosophy Explorer
Posts: 5621
Joined: Sun Aug 31, 2014 7:39 am

Re: Dualism?

Post by Philosophy Explorer »

Dalek Prime wrote:
Philosophy Explorer wrote:
Dalek Prime wrote:What I'd like to know is why you think what I originally said on consciousness had anything to do with whether the brain was a solid or not, Phil.
Consciousness or mind is often associated with the brain.
In this universe, the physicists say there is no real solid (due to QM) which of course includes the brain in that category. So if the brain is not solid, then how can the mind exist inside the brain 100% of the time (in fact, the brain isn't solid at any point in time which is true for any matter so it's pointless for Terrapin to require an article to mention the brain).

I hope this answers your question. I'm one who doesn't believe in duality.

PhilX
Well, that not what you seem to be saying, if you then have to ask how the mind can be situated in the brain 100℅ of the time. It doesn't go anywhere else, Phil.
It doesn't have to (and remember the mind has no physical existence). Since the brain isn't fully present, then where would the mind be?

PhilX
Dalek Prime
Posts: 4922
Joined: Tue Apr 14, 2015 4:48 am
Location: Living in a tree with Polly.

Re: Dualism?

Post by Dalek Prime »

Philosophy Explorer wrote:
Dalek Prime wrote:
Philosophy Explorer wrote:
Consciousness or mind is often associated with the brain.
In this universe, the physicists say there is no real solid (due to QM) which of course includes the brain in that category. So if the brain is not solid, then how can the mind exist inside the brain 100% of the time (in fact, the brain isn't solid at any point in time which is true for any matter so it's pointless for Terrapin to require an article to mention the brain).

I hope this answers your question. I'm one who doesn't believe in duality.

PhilX
Well, that not what you seem to be saying, if you then have to ask how the mind can be situated in the brain 100℅ of the time. It doesn't go anywhere else, Phil.
It doesn't have to (and remember the mind has no physical existence). Since the brain isn't fully present, then where would the mind be?

PhilX
Wherever you last left it. What else do you want me to say? Don't let QM rule your thinking Phil.
Post Reply