What is “dualism” and why is it controversial?

_{Denyse O'Leary

August 19, 2018

Intelligent Design, Mind, Naturalism, Philosophy}

Share: Facebook; Twitter; LinkedIn; Flipboard; Print; Email

Most people think we are more than just live bodies but what is the “more”? Frank Turek explains,

2. Varieties of Dualism: Ontology

2.1 Predicate dualism

2.2 Property Dualism

2.3 Substance Dualism

3. Varieties of Dualism: Interaction

3.1 Interactionism

3.2 Epiphenomenalism

3.3 Parallelism

(Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy) More.

If you don’t think you are 99.44% chimpanzee nd that consciousness is an illusion, you might want to consider what sort of dualism you are.

Hat tip: Ken Francis

See also: Alternatives to dualism: Post-modern science: The illusion of consciousness sees through itself

and

From Scientific American: “we may all be alters—dissociated personalities— of universal consciousness.”

Comments

JDK, that we are amphibians does not entail that physical reality needs to be an ultimate or necessary aspect of the root of reality. There is a whole doctrine of creation with a beginning of the physical order of being. En arche, en o logos, in the beginning the Word was, and without him was not anything made that was made. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The beginningless initiates the beginning, and that beginningless is at root rationality himself. KFkairosfocus_{August 20, 2018
August
08
Aug
20
20
2018
09:25 PM
9
09
25
PM
PDT}

PS: The design inference does not address ultimate reality, but instead identifies intelligent design on tested reliable observable signs. The worldviews discussion is at another level. And, it is clear from the above that attempting to reduce mindedness to a computational substrate undermines rationality itself. Trying to suggest that the observable physical world is grand delusion ends up undermining rationality. We must deal with an empirical order that manifests coherence with diversity, including mindedness in embodied beings. Which does not by itself address the world root and how it grounds coherence.kairosfocus_{August 20, 2018
August
08
Aug
20
20
2018
09:21 PM
9
09
21
PM
PDT}

Yes, kf, Christianity traces back to one God. But in this world, as Turek say, human beings are dual creatures, with a material body and an immaterial soul. Do you think that is an accurate statement about Christian theology?jdk_{August 20, 2018
August
08
Aug
20
20
2018
09:19 PM
9
09
19
PM
PDT}

I think to understand consciousness we have to begin with a few fundamental questions: Do you exist? How do you know you exist? Is your existence real? I would argue you know you exist (like I do) because you are conscious of your existence. However, if the conscious experience of your existence is real then what is consciousness? Does it have a chemical formula? A circuit diagram? If consciousness is created by the brain, how does the brain create it? And, what exactly does it create? Is it something we can measure and analyze like electrons, protons or photons? We can “objectively” analyze the brain. Can we analyze and study consciousness in the same way? David Chalmers puts it this way:
“Why should there be conscious experience at all? It is central to a subjective viewpoint, but from an objective viewpoint it is utterly unexpected. Taking the objective view, we can tell a story about how fields, waves, and particles in the spatiotemporal manifold interact in subtle ways, leading to the development of complex systems such as brains. In principle, there is no deep philosophical mystery in the fact that these systems can process information in complex ways, react to stimuli with sophisticated behavior, and even exhibit such complex capacities as learning, memory, and language. All this is impressive, but it is not metaphysically baffling. In contrast, the existence of conscious experience seems to be a new feature from this viewpoint. It is not something that one would have predicted from the other features alone. That is, consciousness is surprising. If all we knew about were the facts of physics, and even the facts about dynamics and information processing in complex systems, there would be no compelling reason to postulate the existence of conscious experience. If it were not for our direct evidence in the first-person case, the hypothesis would seem unwarranted; almost mystical, perhaps. Yet we know, directly, that there is conscious experience. The question is, how do we reconcile it with everything else we know?”
? David J. Chalmers, The Conscious Mind: In Search of a Fundamental Theory I would argue that if consciousness can’t be studied in the same way then ontologically it is different and distinct from the physical things we study in science. If it’s different and distinct from physical world then that’s dualism.john_a_designer_{August 20, 2018
August
08
Aug
20
20
2018
09:14 PM
9
09
14
PM
PDT}

JDK, ethical theism (and especially the Christian tradition) would not trace reality to two but to one. Namely, God the one and only true God, sovereign creator of the world. There is no duality in the root of reality. This is key to solving the many-sided problem of the one and the many leading to coherent cosmos with diversity and with freedom of responsible rational agency, without fundamental incoherence and chaos. And yes, that man is seen as an amphibian, does not change this. KFkairosfocus_{August 20, 2018
August
08
Aug
20
20
2018
09:14 PM
9
09
14
PM
PDT}

My post at 68 is a mess, as I have some duplicated sentences. This is better: I think you would find that most Christian theologians would not agree with you that they "shouldn’t see the mind/ soul/ body disconnect as dualism." So it is false when you say "In other words the disconnect only exists in the minds of materialists." Christians would self-identify as dualists. Just watch the video in the OP: at 2:25 Turek says, we are dual beings. Christian theology is a philosophy of dualism. And sure, my quote also talks about monism. As I've said, the debate between the two views has been around since the beginning of western philosophy. But Christianity, and other common philosophies here at UD that see immaterial reality as separate from material reality, are dualistic philosophies.jdk_{August 20, 2018
August
08
Aug
20
20
2018
08:38 PM
8
08
38
PM
PDT}

I think you would find that most Christian theologians would not agree with you that they "shouldn’t see the mind/ soul/ body disconnect as dualism." So it is false when you say "In other words the disconnect only exists in the minds of materialists." Christians would self-identify as dualists. Just watch the video in the OP. Watch the video in the OP: at 2:25 Turek says, we are dual beings. Christian theology is a philosophy of dualism. And sure, my quote also talks about monism. As I've said, the debate between the two views has been around since the beginning of western philosophy.I think you would find that most Christian theologians would not agree with you that they "shouldn’t see the mind/ soul/ body disconnect as dualism." So it is false when you say "In other words the disconnect only exists in the minds of materialists." Christians self-identify as dualists. Just watch the video in the OP. And sure, my quote also talks about monism. As I've said, the debate between the two views has been around since the beginning of western philosophy.jdk_{August 20, 2018
August
08
Aug
20
20
2018
08:16 PM
8
08
16
PM
PDT}

Oh my. ID doesn’t see the mind/ brain disconnect as dualism because it was all part of the unified design. Christians shouldn't see the mind/ soul/ body disconnect as dualism because it is all part of their unified Creation. In other words the disconnect only exists in the minds of materialists. Even your reference talks about the materialists and their monism.ET_{August 20, 2018
August
08
Aug
20
20
2018
08:07 PM
8
08
07
PM
PDT}

You should read some of the linked articles in the OP. The dualism/monism debate goes back to Plato, who was a dualist. For instance,
1.2 History of dualism In dualism, ‘mind’ is contrasted with ‘body’, but at different times, different aspects of the mind have been the centre of attention. In the classical and mediaeval periods, it was the intellect that was thought to be most obviously resistant to a materialistic account: from Descartes on, the main stumbling block to materialist monism was supposed to be ‘consciousness’, of which phenomenal consciousness or sensation came to be considered as the paradigm instance. The classical emphasis originates in Plato's Phaedo. Plato believed that the true substances are not physical bodies, which are ephemeral, but the eternal Forms of which bodies are imperfect copies. These Forms not only make the world possible, they also make it intelligible, because they perform the role of universals, or what Frege called ‘concepts'. It is their connection with intelligibility that is relevant to the philosophy of mind. Because Forms are the grounds of intelligibility, they are what the intellect must grasp in the process of understanding. In Phaedo Plato presents a variety of arguments for the immortality of the soul, but the one that is relevant for our purposes is that the intellect is immaterial because Forms are immaterial and intellect must have an affinity with the Forms it apprehends (78b4–84b8). This affinity is so strong that the soul strives to leave the body in which it is imprisoned and to dwell in the realm of Forms. It may take many reincarnations before this is achieved. Plato's dualism is not, therefore, simply a doctrine in the philosophy of mind, but an integral part of his whole metaphysics.
Dualistic philosophies have been central to western philosophy, including all Christian theologies. Your paragraph that "Materialists created the word and definitions because they disagree with it. It is their convoluted claptrap. Then invented dualism in an attempt to make non-materialists look bad, somehow." is uninformed, to put it mildly.jdk_{August 20, 2018
August
08
Aug
20
20
2018
08:03 PM
8
08
03
PM
PDT}

I know what it means and I reject it. methinks you don't know what reject means. And you have reading comprehension issues. Materialists created the word and definitions because they disagree with it. It is their convoluted claptrap. Then invented dualism in an attempt to make non-materialists look bad, somehow.ET_{August 20, 2018
August
08
Aug
20
20
2018
07:54 PM
7
07
54
PM
PDT}

F/N: I also point to my May 29 outline remark on taoism (and the OP on phil) here: https://uncommondescent.com/philosophy/sev-jdk-the-value-of-philosophy-esp-metaphysics-and-addressing-the-intersubjective-consensus-challenge/#comment-659266 KFkairosfocus_{August 20, 2018
August
08
Aug
20
20
2018
07:52 PM
7
07
52
PM
PDT}

re 62: Methinks you do not know what dualism means. Theists are dualists: body and soul are different. (You might watch the video in the OP). Materialists rejects dualism: they are monists who believe all there is comes from one substance, the substance which underlies the physical world. Materialists are NOT claiming dualism. Your last paragraph above is all confused, and wrong, about who is claiming that dualism is true.jdk_{August 20, 2018
August
08
Aug
20
20
2018
07:39 PM
7
07
39
PM
PDT}

jdk:
1. I think you mean “mind”, not brain.
No, I said what I meant. It takes immaterial information to produce a brain.
2. This is an interesting topic, and there are a number of perspectives on it.
Until someone can demonstrate otherwise I will stick to what is known.
3. Doesn’t see what [as] dualism? Information, the mind, matter and energy???. It’s not clear what “it” you are referring to.
It doesn't see the mind/ brain disconnect as dualism because it was all part of the unified design. I reject the claim of dualism and its definitions as nothing more than materialistic claptrap. If materialists could support their claims then there wouldn't be any need of it anyway. But they can't so they need to invent bogus stuff like dualisms.ET_{August 20, 2018
August
08
Aug
20
20
2018
07:30 PM
7
07
30
PM
PDT}

JDK, I am addressing monism vs dualism, and have first grounded that monism on physicalism fails; already a significant result, then went on to point out -- barbed dismissals notwithstanding -- how dismissal of the physical AND reduction of mind to computation lead to grand delusion and self-referential absurdity. That is again a valuable result, we must address the one and the many in a world where we are embodied, responsible, rational creatures in a physical domain. I can go on to show that no essentially passive underlying candidate root reality can account for a coherent world involving the one and the many, when we must address responsible, substantially free,rational mindedness that is morally governed and inhabiting a coherent, unified world order. Blind necessity cannot account for this, and blind chance cannot credibly ground rationality much less a morally governed order. The significance of functionally specific complex organisation and associated information in the observed order also points beyond mechanical necessity and/or equally blind chance, starting with cosmological fine tuning that facilitates C-chem, aqueous medium, terrestrial planet in galactic habitable zone life, points to purposeful intent acting through intelligent design. That we find ourselves morally governed, starting with duties of care to truth and reason, points to a moral government of the world we inhabit, from its root. (Root of reality is the only level where is and ought can be successfully unified.) This outlines the context in which I have suggested that ethical theism is the strong horse that wins the comparative difficulties context going away. KFkairosfocus_{August 20, 2018
August
08
Aug
20
20
2018
07:26 PM
7
07
26
PM
PDT}

1. I think you mean "mind", not brain. 2. This is an interesting topic, and there are a number of perspectives on it. 3. Doesn't see what [as] dualism? Information, the mind, matter and energy???. It's not clear what "it" you are referring to. Also, ask bornagain whether ID thinks that the soul and the body are aspects of one thing (not dualism), or two separate kinds of things (dualism), and see whether he agrees with you.jdk_{August 20, 2018
August
08
Aug
20
20
2018
06:44 PM
6
06
44
PM
PDT}

1- There isn't any evidence that the brain is reducible to matter, energy and what emerges from their interactions 2- Information is neither matter nor energy 3- Intelligent Design doesn't see it at dualismET_{August 20, 2018
August
08
Aug
20
20
2018
06:38 PM
6
06
38
PM
PDT}

But we have gotten way off-topic: I should know better than to respond to posts such as 53. My bad.jdk_{August 20, 2018
August
08
Aug
20
20
2018
05:53 PM
5
05
53
PM
PDT}

I will point out that there is a difference between understanding ID, and being able to articulate it in some detail, and agreeing with it. I'm pretty sure I have a fairly accurate and nuanced understanding of the various ID arguments that have been made the past 15 years or so, although I vary a lot as to how much I think they have any substance. Also, there really isn't just one "ID theory", and in many ways not much specificity in many aspects of those theories.jdk_{August 20, 2018
August
08
Aug
20
20
2018
05:42 PM
5
05
42
PM
PDT}

Has anyone ever seen Jack K demonstrate correct knowledge of ID? Anyone?ET_{August 20, 2018
August
08
Aug
20
20
2018
05:21 PM
5
05
21
PM
PDT}

jdk:
I think you’re probably wrong about both of those things.
So what? You definitely can't demonstrate such a thing.ET_{August 20, 2018
August
08
Aug
20
20
2018
05:07 PM
5
05
07
PM
PDT}

Hmmm. Dunning-Kruger? I think you're probably wrong about both of those things.jdk_{August 20, 2018
August
08
Aug
20
20
2018
04:56 PM
4
04
56
PM
PDT}

jdk:
Taoism posits an underlying substrate from which both the physical and mental arises: it’s called the Tao. You just called that substrate ID. There are similarities here.
Jack, you know very little about ID and I doubt your knowledge of Taoism.ET_{August 20, 2018
August
08
Aug
20
20
2018
04:51 PM
4
04
51
PM
PDT}

At post 1 Deputy Dog states:
"I can point to roughly 7.6 billion examples of minds that are associated with physical brains, and precisely zero examples of minds that are not associated with physical brains."
Besides the fact that Deputy Dog is (purposely?) forgetting about tens of millions of Near Death Experiences,,
Near-Death Experiences: Putting a Darwinist's Evidentiary Standards to the Test - Dr. Michael Egnor - October 15, 2012 Excerpt: Indeed, about 20 percent of NDE's are corroborated, which means that there are independent ways of checking about the veracity of the experience. The patients knew of things that they could not have known except by extraordinary perception -- such as describing details of surgery that they watched while their heart was stopped, etc. Additionally, many NDE's have a vividness and a sense of intense reality that one does not generally encounter in dreams or hallucinations.,,, The most "parsimonious" explanation -- the simplest scientific explanation -- is that the (Near Death) experience was real. Tens of millions of people have had such experiences. That is tens of millions of more times than we have observed the origin of species , (or the origin of life, or the origin of a protein/gene, or of a molecular machine), which is never.,,, The materialist reaction, in short, is unscientific and close-minded. NDE's show fellows like Coyne at their sneering unscientific irrational worst. Somebody finds a crushed fragment of a fossil and it's earth-shaking evidence. Tens of million of people have life-changing spiritual experiences and it's all a big yawn. Note: Dr. Egnor is professor and vice-chairman of neurosurgery at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/10/near_death_expe_1065301.html
Besides the fact that Deputy Dog is (purposely?) forgetting about tens of millions of Near Death Experiences, is the fact that Deputy Dog has no evidence that anyone else is having a subjective conscious experience save for himself. That is to say that Deputy Dog, although he may fervently believe that other minds exist, has no way of scientifically proving that other people are indeed having a subjective conscious experience. That is to say, I know for 100% fact that I really do exist as a real person and am having a personal subjective experience, but there is no way for atheists to ever to scientifically prove to me that they really exist as a real people who are having a ‘real’ subjective conscious experience, and that they are not just some type of ‘philosophical zombie’ going through the motions of acting like a real person!
Philosophical Zombies – cartoon http://existentialcomics.com/comic/11 David Chalmers on Consciousness (Descartes, Philosophical Zombies and the Hard Problem) – video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NK1Yo6VbRoo
In fact, the 'hard problem' of consciousness is so far beyond any coherent materialistic explanation that Dennett once humorously stated, ‘nobody is conscious … we are all zombies’.
“(Daniel) Dennett concludes, ‘nobody is conscious … we are all zombies’.” J.W. SCHOOLER & C.A. SCHREIBER - Experience, Meta-consciousness, and the Paradox of Introspection - 2004 https://www.scribd.com/document/183053947/Experience-Meta-consciousness-and-the-Paradox-of-Introspection
Dennett is hardly alone in his outright denial of his own conscious experience:
The Consciousness Deniers - Galen Strawson - March 13, 2018 Excerpt: What is the silliest claim ever made? The competition is fierce, but I think the answer is easy. Some people have denied the existence of consciousness: conscious experience, the subjective character of experience, the “what-it-is-like” of experience. Next to this denial—I’ll call it “the Denial”—every known religious belief is only a little less sensible than the belief that grass is green. The Denial began in the twentieth century and continues today in a few pockets of philosophy and psychology and, now, information technology. It had two main causes: the rise of the behaviorist approach in psychology, and the naturalistic approach in philosophy. These were good things in their way, but they spiraled out of control and gave birth to the Great Silliness.,,, ,,, I need to comment on what is being denied—consciousness, conscious experience, experience for short. What is it? Anyone who has ever seen or heard or smelled anything knows what it is; anyone who has ever been in pain, or felt hungry or hot or cold or remorseful, dismayed, uncertain, or sleepy, or has suddenly remembered a missed appointment. All these things involve what are sometimes called “qualia”—that is to say, different types or qualities of conscious experience. What I am calling the Denial is the denial that anyone has ever really had any of these experiences. Perhaps it’s not surprising that most Deniers deny that they’re Deniers. “Of course, we agree that consciousness or experience exists,” they say—but when they say this they mean something that specifically excludes qualia. Who are the Deniers? I have in mind—at least—those who fully subscribe to something called “philosophical behaviorism” as well as those who fully subscribe to something called “functionalism” in the philosophy of mind. Few have been fully explicit in their denial, but among those who have been, we find Brian Farrell, Paul Feyerabend, Richard Rorty, and the generally admirable Daniel Dennett. Ned Block once remarked that Dennett’s attempt to fit consciousness or “qualia” into his theory of reality “has the relation to qualia that the US Air Force had to so many Vietnamese villages: he destroys qualia in order to save them.” One of the strangest things the Deniers say is that although it seems that there is conscious experience, there isn’t really any conscious experience: the seeming is, in fact, an illusion. The trouble with this is that any such illusion is already and necessarily an actual instance of the thing said to be an illusion. http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2018/03/13/the-consciousness-deniers/
Thus, not only can atheists not prove that anyone else is having a subjective conscious experience, when push comes to shove regarding the 'hard problem of consciousness', many leading atheists themselves end up insanely denying the reality of their very own subjective conscious experience. And such as it is with the atheist’s refusal to ever accept any evidence for the Mind of God. As Alvin Plantinga pointed out years ago in “God and Other Minds”, “the evidence for God is just as good as the evidence for other minds; and conversely, if there isn’t any evidence for God, then there is also no evidence that other minds exist,,,”
Another interesting argument comes from the leading philosopher and Christian, Alvin Plantinga—he asked, what evidence does anyone have for the existence of other people’s minds? He argued cogently that the evidence for God is just as good as the evidence for other minds; and conversely, if there isn’t any evidence for God, then there is also no evidence that other minds exist—see God and Other Minds, Cornell University Press, repr. 1990. http://creation.com/atheism-is-more-rational
Of supplemental note. The evidence that other minds exist is all around us. In fact the irrefutable proof of the reality of other minds is sitting right in front of you right now. As George Ellis stated: "The mind is not a physical entity, but it certainly is causally effective: proof is the existence of the computer on which you are reading this text. It could not exist if it had not been designed and manufactured according to someone’s plans, thereby proving the causal efficacy of thoughts, which like computer programs and data are not physical entities.
Recognising Top-Down Causation - George Ellis Excerpt page 7: Top-down causation is prevalent at all levels in the brain: for example it is crucial to vision [24,25] as well as the relation of the individual brain to society [2]. The hardware (the brain) can do nothing without the excitations that animate it: indeed this is the difference between life and death. The mind is not a physical entity, but it certainly is causally effective: proof is the existence of the computer on which you are reading this text. It could not exist if it had not been designed and manufactured according to someone’s plans, thereby proving the causal efficacy of thoughts, which like computer programs and data are not physical entities. http://fqxi.org/data/essay-contest-files/Ellis_FQXI_Essay_Ellis_2012.pdf
bornagain77_{August 20, 2018
August
08
Aug
20
20
2018
03:58 PM
3
03
58
PM
PDT}

Taoist philosophy does not say that everything is one.jdk_{August 20, 2018
August
08
Aug
20
20
2018
03:19 PM
3
03
19
PM
PDT}

A Yin-Yang reality explains everything. Everything is ONE. If not, nature tries its best to correct the imbalance.FourFaces_{August 20, 2018
August
08
Aug
20
20
2018
03:13 PM
3
03
13
PM
PDT}

Here are a few more references on the axiomatic position of free will within quantum mechanics:
Antoine Suarez Excerpt: Suarez cites the Free Will Theorem of John Conway and Simon Kochen as making free will an axiom (within quantum mechanics), without which science itself could not proceed. http://www.informationphilosopher.com/solutions/scientists/suarez/ The free will theorem of John H. Conway and Simon B. Kochen,,, Since the free will theorem applies to any arbitrary physical theory consistent with the axioms, it would not even be possible to place the information into the universe's past in an ad hoc way. The argument proceeds from the Kochen-Specker theorem, which shows that the result of any individual measurement of spin was not fixed (pre-determined) independently of the choice of measurements. http://www.informationphilosopher.com/freedom/free_will_theorem.html
In regards to the mental attribute of the 'persistence of self identity', here is an interesting article entitled Einstein vs. Bergson, science vs. philosophy and the meaning of time
Einstein vs Bergson, science vs philosophy and the meaning of time - 24 June 2015 http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/philosopherszone/science-vs-philosophy-and-the-meaning-of-time/6539568
In his 'philosophy of time', Bergson had clearly elucidated the fact that there was a clear distinction to be made between the subjective experience of person being outside of time as he watched time passing by and the physical time that clocks measure. Whereas, Einstein, on the other hand, defiantly declared to the philosophers that “The time of the philosophers did not exist.” In other words, Einstein held that only physical time exited and that Bergson's belief that there was a mental perspective of time that was outside of time was wrong. This disagreement between Bergson and Einstein, between physical time and mental time, and as this following article points out, was one of the primary reasons that Einstein never received a Nobel prize for relativity:
Einstein vs Bergson, science vs philosophy and the meaning of time - 24 June 2015 Excerpt: Bergson was outraged, but the philosopher did not take it lying down. A few months later Einstein was awarded the Nobel Prize for the discovery of the law of photoelectric effect, an area of science that Canales noted, ‘hardly jolted the public’s imagination’. In truth, Einstein coveted recognition for his work on relativity. Bergson inflicted some return humiliation of his own. By casting doubt on Einstein’s theoretical trajectory, Bergson dissuaded the (Nobel) committee from awarding (Einstein) the prize for relativity. In 1922, the jury was still out on the correct interpretation of time. So began a dispute that festered for years and played into the larger rift between physics and philosophy, science and the humanities. http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/philosopherszone/science-vs-philosophy-and-the-meaning-of-time/6539568
In the following video entitled "The Mind and Its Now", Stanley Jaki, who is also a well respected philosopher in his own right, recounts another encounter that Einstein had, in 1935, with another respected philosopher who was named Rudolf Carnap
Stanley L. Jaki: "The Mind and Its Now" https://vimeo.com/10588094
I would like to focus in on exactly what Einstein was asked by Rudolf Carnap on that train in 1935. Einstein was specifically asked “Can physics demonstrate the existence of ‘the now’ in order to make the notion of ‘now’ into a scientifically valid term?”
“Can physics demonstrate the existence of ‘the now’ in order to make the notion of ‘now’ into a scientifically valid term?” - Rudolf Carnap
And again, Einstein’s answer was categorical. Einstein answered: “The experience of ‘the now’ cannot be turned into an object of physical measurement, it can never be a part of physics.”
“The experience of ‘the now’ cannot be turned into an object of physical measurement, it can never be a part of physics.” - Albert Einstein
Contrary to what Einstein himself thought possible for experimental physics, 'the experience of ‘the now’' is VERY MUCH a part of experimental physics, especially quantum physics. Although I could references several experiments,,,
Albert Einstein vs. Quantum Mechanics and His Own Mind - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxFFtZ301j4
Although I could references several experiments, I hold the following delayed choice experiment to be one of the most dramatic demonstrations of 'the now's' central importance in quantum mechanics. Specifically, in the following experiment, that was performed with atoms instead of photons, it was proved that "measurement is everything. At the quantum level, reality does not exist if you are not looking at it,"
Experiment confirms quantum theory weirdness - May 27, 2015 Excerpt: The bizarre nature of reality as laid out by quantum theory has survived another test, with scientists performing a famous experiment and proving that reality does not exist until it is measured. Physicists at The Australian National University (ANU) have conducted John Wheeler's delayed-choice thought experiment, which involves a moving object that is given the choice to act like a particle or a wave. Wheeler's experiment then asks - at which point does the object decide? Common sense says the object is either wave-like or particle-like, independent of how we measure it. But quantum physics predicts that whether you observe wave like behavior (interference) or particle behavior (no interference) depends only on how it is actually measured at the end of its journey. This is exactly what the ANU team found. "It proves that measurement is everything. At the quantum level, reality does not exist if you are not looking at it," said Associate Professor Andrew Truscott from the ANU Research School of Physics and Engineering. Despite the apparent weirdness, the results confirm the validity of quantum theory, which,, has enabled the development of many technologies such as LEDs, lasers and computer chips. The ANU team not only succeeded in building the experiment, which seemed nearly impossible when it was proposed in 1978, but reversed Wheeler's original concept of light beams being bounced by mirrors, and instead used atoms scattered by laser light. "Quantum physics' predictions about interference seem odd enough when applied to light, which seems more like a wave, but to have done the experiment with atoms, which are complicated things that have mass and interact with electric fields and so on, adds to the weirdness," said Roman Khakimov, PhD student at the Research School of Physics and Engineering. http://phys.org/news/2015-05-quantum-theory-weirdness.html
The Theistic implications of this experiment are fairly obvious. As Professor Scott Aaronson quipped, “Look, we all have fun ridiculing the creationists,,, But if we accept the usual picture of quantum mechanics, then in a certain sense the situation is far worse: the world (as you experience it) might as well not have existed 10^-43 seconds ago!”
“Look, we all have fun ridiculing the creationists who think the world sprang into existence on October 23, 4004 BC at 9AM (presumably Babylonian time), with the fossils already in the ground, light from distant stars heading toward us, etc. But if we accept the usual picture of quantum mechanics, then in a certain sense the situation is far worse: the world (as you experience it) might as well not have existed 10^-43 seconds ago!” – Scott Aaronson – MIT associate Professor quantum computation - Lecture 11: Decoherence and Hidden Variables
Thus both of the primary mental attributes of mind, (free will and persistence of self identity (and/or the 'experience of the now'), which Dr. Egnor had found to be completely irreducible to brain states, are also found to be foundational, even axiomatic, to our understanding of quantum mechanics. Moreover, besides giving us empirical evidence for the reality of our immaterial minds, quantum mechanics, via massive quantum entanglement/coherence now being found in every biological molecule of our material bodies, also gives us evidence that we each have a immaterial soul that is capable of living beyond the death of our material bodies.
Darwinian Materialism vs. Quantum Biology – video https://youtu.be/LHdD2Am1g5Y
bornagain77_{August 20, 2018
August
08
Aug
20
20
2018
03:02 PM
3
03
02
PM
PDT}

The Mind is not the same thing as the Brain. One simple way of demonstrating that the mind is not the same thing as the brain comes from utilizing the ‘Law of Identity’, (which is a basic law of logic), to separate properties of mind from properties of the brain:
Law of thought – The three traditional laws 1. The law of identity 2. The law of non-contradiction 3. The law of excluded middle ,,,,Commentary of Aristotle’s Metaphysics – a commentary which is full of the most ingenious and original views, – not only asserts to the law of Identity a coordinate dignity with the law of Contradiction, but, against Aristotle, he maintains that the principle of Identity, and not the principle of Contradiction, is the one absolutely first. The formula in which Andreas expressed it was Ens est ens. Subsequently to this author, the question concerning the relative priority of the two laws of Identity and of Contradiction became one much agitated in the schools; though there were also found some who asserted to the law of Excluded Middle this supreme rank.” [From Hamilton LECT. V. LOGIC.65-66] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_thought#History
Michael Egnor, who is a brain surgeon and a professor of neurosurgery at SUNY, Stony Brook, states the irreconcilable properties of mind compared to brain, via the law of identity, as such:
The Mind and Materialist Superstition – Michael Egnor - 2008 Six “conditions of mind” that are irreconcilable with materialism: - Excerpt: Intentionality,,, Qualia,,, Persistence of Self-Identity,,, Restricted Access,,, Incorrigibility,,, Free Will,,, http://www.evolutionnews.org/2008/11/the_mind_and_materialist_super013961.html
Alvin Plantinga humorously uses a clever thought experiment, that imagines that we have a 'beetle body', to highlight the fact, via the 'law of identity', that the mind cannot possibly be the same thing as the brain.
Alvin Plantinga and the Modal Argument (for the existence of the mind/soul) – video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOTn_wRwDE0
I would like to focus in on two properties of mind that are irreconcilable with the belief that the mind is 'nothing but' the brain. Those two irreducible properties of mind that I would like to focus in on are persistence of self identity and free will. In the following article entitled "Science and the Soul,,,
Science and the Soul – Michael Egnor – June 2018 https://www.plough.com/en/topics/justice/reconciliation/science-and-the-soul
,,Dr. Egnor comments that,,,
"The neuroscientist Roger Sperry studied scores of split-brain patients. He found, surprisingly, that in ordinary life the patients showed little effect. Each patient was still one person. The intellect and will – the capacity to have abstract thought and to choose – remained unified.,,, The most remarkable result of Sperry’s Nobel Prize–winning work was that the person’s intellect and will – what we might call the soul – remained undivided. The brain can be cut in half, but the intellect and will cannot."
And Egnor then goes on to comment that,,,
"Penfield noted that patients always knew that the movement or sensation elicited by brain stimulation was done to them, but not by them. When Penfield stimulated the arm area of the brain, patients always said, “You made my arm move” and never said, “I moved my arm.” Patients always retained a correct awareness of agency. There was a part of the patient – the will – that Penfield could not reach with his electrode. Penfield began his career as a materialist. He finished his career as an emphatic dualist. He insisted that there is an aspect of the self – the intellect and the will – that is not the brain, and that cannot be elicited by stimulation of the brain."
And then Dr. Egnor goes on to state,
"Consistently he (Libet) found that the conscious decision to push the button was preceded by about half a second by a brain wave, which he called the readiness potential. Then a half-second later the subject became aware of his decision. It appeared at first that the subjects were not free; their brains made the decision to move and they followed it. But Libet looked deeper. He asked his subjects to veto their decision immediately after they made it – to not push the button. Again, the readiness potential appeared a half-second before conscious awareness of the decision to push the button, but Libet found that the veto – he called it “free won’t” – had no brain wave corresponding to it. The brain, then, has activity that corresponds to a pre-conscious urge to do something. But we are free to veto or accept this urge. The motives are material. The veto, and implicitly the acceptance, is an immaterial act of the will. Libet noted the correspondence between his experiments and the traditional religious understanding of human beings. We are, he said, beset by a sea of inclinations, corresponding to material activity in our brains, which we have the free choice to reject or accept. It is hard not to read this in more familiar terms: we are tempted by sin, yet we are free to choose."
Thus, according to the research cited by Dr. Egnor, free will and sense of self,(and/or 'persistence of self identity'), are the two primary properties of mind that simply refuse to be reduced to the material processes of the brain. Interestingly, it is precisely these two properties on mind, i.e. free will and 'persistence of self identity', that also most dramatically stand out in quantum mechanics. In regards to free will. First off it is important to note that the atheist commits intellectual suicide in his denial of free will. As Martin Cothan states in the following article “The claim that free will is an illusion requires the possibility that minds have the freedom to assent to a logical argument, a freedom denied by the claim itself. It is an assent that must, in order to remain logical and not physiological, presume a perspective outside the physical order.”
Sam Harris’s Free Will: The Medial Pre-Frontal Cortex Did It – Martin Cothran – November 9, 2012 Excerpt: There is something ironic about the position of thinkers like Harris on issues like this: they claim that their position is the result of the irresistible necessity of logic (in fact, they pride themselves on their logic). Their belief is the consequent, in a ground/consequent relation between their evidence and their conclusion. But their very stated position is that any mental state — including their position on this issue — is the effect of a physical, not logical cause. By their own logic, it isn’t logic that demands their assent to the claim that free will is an illusion, but the prior chemical state of their brains. The only condition under which we could possibly find their argument convincing is if they are not true. The claim that free will is an illusion requires the possibility that minds have the freedom to assent to a logical argument, a freedom denied by the claim itself. It is an assent that must, in order to remain logical and not physiological, presume a perspective outside the physical order. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/11/sam_harriss_fre066221.html
Thus if free will did not exist in some meaningful sense then the atheist himself would be incapable of making a rationally coherent argument. Besides this catastrophic epistemological failure that is inherent in the very heart of the atheist's worldview in his denial of free will, empirical evidence from quantum mechanics itself (which is our most accurate scientific description of reality thus far), also now corroborates the reality of free will. As the atheist Steven Weinberg stated: (in quantum mechanics) humans are brought into the laws of nature at the most fundamental level.,,, the instrumentalist approach (in quantum mechanics) turns its back on a vision that became possible after Darwin, of a world governed by impersonal physical laws that control human behavior along with everything else.,,, In quantum mechanics these probabilities do not exist until people choose what to measure,,, Unlike the case of classical physics, a choice must be made,,,
The Trouble with Quantum Mechanics – Steven Weinberg – January 19, 2017 Excerpt: The instrumentalist approach,, (the) wave function,, is merely an instrument that provides predictions of the probabilities of various outcomes when measurements are made.,, In the instrumentalist approach,,, humans are brought into the laws of nature at the most fundamental level. According to Eugene Wigner, a pioneer of quantum mechanics, “it was not possible to formulate the laws of quantum mechanics in a fully consistent way without reference to the consciousness.”11 Thus the instrumentalist approach turns its back on a vision that became possible after Darwin, of a world governed by impersonal physical laws that control human behavior along with everything else. It is not that we object to thinking about humans. Rather, we want to understand the relation of humans to nature, not just assuming the character of this relation by incorporating it in what we suppose are nature’s fundamental laws, but rather by deduction from laws that make no explicit reference to humans. We may in the end have to give up this goal,,, Some physicists who adopt an instrumentalist approach argue that the probabilities we infer from the wave function are objective probabilities, independent of whether humans are making a measurement. I don’t find this tenable. In quantum mechanics these probabilities do not exist until people choose what to measure, such as the spin in one or another direction. Unlike the case of classical physics, a choice must be made,,, http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2017/01/19/trouble-with-quantum-mechanics/
Advances in quantum mechanics, specifically contextuality and/or the Kochen-Speckter theorem, now validates the 'instrumentalist approach' and demonstrates that free will is very much a part of quantum mechanics. In contextuality we find that “In the quantum world, the property that you discover through measurement is not the property that the system actually had prior to the measurement process. What you observe necessarily depends on how you carried out the observation” and “Measurement outcomes depend on all the other measurements that are performed – the full context of the experiment. Contextuality means that quantum measurements can not be thought of as simply revealing some pre-existing properties of the system under study. ”
Contextuality is ‘magic ingredient’ for quantum computing – June 11, 2012 Excerpt: Contextuality was first recognized as a feature of quantum theory almost 50 years ago. The theory showed that it was impossible to explain measurements on quantum systems in the same way as classical systems. In the classical world, measurements simply reveal properties that the system had, such as colour, prior to the measurement. In the quantum world, the property that you discover through measurement is not the property that the system actually had prior to the measurement process. What you observe necessarily depends on how you carried out the observation. Imagine turning over a playing card. It will be either a red suit or a black suit – a two-outcome measurement. Now imagine nine playing cards laid out in a grid with three rows and three columns. Quantum mechanics predicts something that seems contradictory – there must be an even number of red cards in every row and an odd number of red cards in every column. Try to draw a grid that obeys these rules and you will find it impossible. It’s because quantum measurements cannot be interpreted as merely revealing a pre-existing property in the same way that flipping a card reveals a red or black suit. Measurement outcomes depend on all the other measurements that are performed – the full context of the experiment. Contextuality means that quantum measurements can not be thought of as simply revealing some pre-existing properties of the system under study. That’s part of the weirdness of quantum mechanics. http://phys.org/news/2014-06-weird-magic-ingredient-quantum.html
And as leading experimental physicist Anton Zeilinger states in the following video, what we perceive as reality now depends on our earlier decision what to measure. Which is a very, very, deep message about the nature of reality and our part in the whole universe. We are not just passive observers.”
“The Kochen-Speckter Theorem talks about properties of one system only. So we know that we cannot assume – to put it precisely, we know that it is wrong to assume that the features of a system, which we observe in a measurement exist prior to measurement. Not always. I mean in a certain cases. So in a sense, what we perceive as reality now depends on our earlier decision what to measure. Which is a very, very, deep message about the nature of reality and our part in the whole universe. We are not just passive observers.” Anton Zeilinger – Quantum Physics Debunks Materialism – video (7:17 minute mark) https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=4C5pq7W5yRM#t=437
bornagain77_{August 20, 2018
August
08
Aug
20
20
2018
03:02 PM
3
03
02
PM
PDT}

re 44: kf, can you read? I am not arguing for reducing the mind to matter. I am accepting the premise the "plausible conclusion [that] we inhabit a reality where both mind and matter are actual and interact." What I am putting forth for consideration is that these are not two separate aspects of reality, so that mind could exist without matter, but rather two intertwined manifestations of an underlying oneness that is neither mind nor matter. I know you won't agree with that, but it would be nice to think that you are actually understanding what I'm saying rather arguing against things which I am not saying.jdk_{August 20, 2018
August
08
Aug
20
20
2018
02:39 PM
2
02
39
PM
PDT}

re 45: Taoism posits an underlying substrate from which both the physical and mental arises: it's called the Tao. You just called that substrate ID. There are similarities here.jdk_{August 20, 2018
August
08
Aug
20
20
2018
02:33 PM
2
02
33
PM
PDT}

jdk:
Sounds like you’re a Taoist, ET!
Sounds like you are clueless, Jack.ET_{August 20, 2018
August
08
Aug
20
20
2018
02:28 PM
2
02
28
PM
PDT}

Prev 1 2 3 4 Next

You must be logged in to post a comment.

Leave a Reply