In essence the argument is, if mind is something utterly different to the everyday objects around us, then how can your mind move your arm?

it amounts to the assertion that all lesser animals and those human beings existing prior to the 17th century are and were unable to successfully predict anything. — javra

How?

How? — Banno

One cannot rely upon conservation laws to make successful predictions when no awareness of conservation laws occur. Therefore, if the trustworthiness of currently known conservation laws is requisite for making successful predictions, then beings unaware of these laws—as is the case for lesser animals and humans of former generations—cannot / could not make successful predictions.

No?

But I’m supposing that underlying this topic—as it relates to science—is the issue of predictions in relation to what?

Our modern knowledge of physics, chemistry, and biology (to the extent that neo-Darwinian biology relies upon chemistry) does indeed rely upon a worldview wherein physical energy is foundational, ubiquitous, and conserved—hence, they do rely on the presumptions of physicalism so as to optimally explain data. This said, two issues:

One, this does not thereby entail that physicalism is necessarily true: The pesky possibility of a future paradigm shift which would make sense of things physicalism addresses without itself being physicalism is not something that anyone can rule out … and it might likely hold advantages in explaining aspects of the world, such as ethics and value in general, that physicalism cannot cogently address (at least, imo) … but no one will bother exploring such possibility if it is virtually outlawed by scientism’s thought police, which nowadays seems rampant in much of society, on the one hand, and by the religious fundamentalists on the other.

Secondly, as I previously mentioned, science does not equate to physics but, instead, to an epistemic approach toward gaining, always fallible, knowledge regarding the empirical world we all share: for instance, social sciences such as those of anthropology and psychology are as much empirical sciences as are the natural sciences, and the former can make successful predictions without relying on conservation laws of energy just fine. If this seems dubious, as one measly example, check out advertising’s predictive success. This advertising has become insidiously omnipresent nowadays (again, imo) and, more to the point, is historically informed by behaviorist schools of psychology—this without giving a hoot as to whether the conservation of physical energy holds.

In short, again, what I'm arguing is that the potential downfall of physicalism does not in any way equate to the downfall of science (or, else, of successful predictions).

Use it to fudge whatever you need to fudge to excuse poor thinking. — Banno

...In contrast to the unsurpassable brilliance of Duck-Rabbit.

No? — javra

No.

The claim was not that prediction relies on conservation laws, but that prediction relies on uniformity. It would be trying to do science in the face of magic. Any experiment would be unable to discount the influence of that other world on it's results. That the uniformity is expressed in terms of conservation is irrelevant.

GO back to this: if mind is something utterly different to the everyday objects around us, then how can your mind move your arm?

If science can explain the movement of an arm with some subtle paradigm-shift then mind is not utterly different to the everyday objects around us, and dualism is false.

GO back to this: if mind is something utterly different to the everyday objects around us, then how can your mind move your arm? — Banno

Preempting a possible question, don't know about Cartesian substance dualism, but something along the lines of objective idealism could well account for mind using energy to move physical things ... but, here, energy would be foundationally qualitative, rather that physically quantitative, such that the latter emerges from the former. — javra

I can't make sense of that. Qualitative energy? Hand waving.

If the arm moves, a quantifiable amount of energy has been expended.

I gave a link in that post to Aristotle's notion of energy, which is qualitative, and is where our modern notion of energy stems from. I'm guessing you're not interested in it, so I won't hand wave you to look.

So science doesn't necessarily collapse if the mind at least in part exists outside of the physical as we know it? — TiredThinker

"Outside the physical" is what I call "Meta-Physics" or "Menta-Physics" or "Mathe-Physics". Modern Science is materialistic, and does not concern itself with anything outside that narrow definition. So, Science won't "collapse" under the weight of evidence for any parallel realities. In fact, since the 20th century, it has been forced to accommodate several immaterial and non-empirical notions, such as invisible fields of "Virtual" (not quite real) particles, and sub-atomic "Strings or "Loops" of energy that are far beyond our current ability to resolve them. Likewise, Multiple universes and parallel worlds are strictly imaginary, yet plausible to scientists in terms of mathematics. Consequently, scientists are forced to stretch their definition of "materialism" to fit the strange dimensions of the quantum foundation of Reality.

Therefore, such Mathe-Physical concepts as quantum entanglement ("spooky action at a distance") are provisionally accepted as useful-but-unproveable hypotheses. That is, they accept the math, but remain agnostic about the philosophical significance of their reality. Do particles really "tunnel" through solid objects without a tunnel, and without moving through the space between point A & B? That's what seems to happen, although it's counter-intuitive. Instead of "collapsing", Science merely adopts new rules (see "ghostly" below). So, it's mostly feckless philosophers who concern themselves with the meaning of such bizarre immaterial concepts.

However, we must hope that sincere scientists will adapt to Meta-Physics (the metaphysical aspects of reality) as the evidence becomes more plausible or undeniable. Yet, at the moment, such notions as life-after-death remain in the province of Anecdotal and Mythical evidence. Subjective "evidence" may be acceptable to some philosophers and "soft scientists, who like to explore Possibilities and Potentials, but not to "hard" physical scientists, who insist on Objective evidence . . . or mathematical pointers into the unknowable. :nerd:

Anecdotal : 1. evidence in the form of stories that people tell about what has happened to them "His conclusions are not supported by data; they are based only on anecdotal evidence".

Mythical : 1 : based on or described in a myth especially as contrasted with history. 2 usually mythical : existing only in the imagination

Subjective : 1. based on or influenced by personal feelings, tastes, or opinions.

Soft Sciences : Any of the specialized fields or disciplines, as psychology, sociology, anthropology, or political science, that interpret human behavior, institutions, society, etc., on the basis of scientific investigations for which it may be difficult to establish strictly measurable criteria.

How Ghostly Quantum Particles Fly Through Barriers Almost Instantly :
At the subatomic level, particles can fly through seemingly impassable barriers like ghosts. Particles can pass through solid objects not because they're very small (though they are), but because the rules of physics are different at the quantum level.
https://www.livescience.com/65043-tunneling-quantum-particles.html

Meta-physics :
The branch of philosophy that examines the nature of reality, including the relationship between mind and matter, substance and attribute, fact and value.
1. Often dismissed by materialists as idle speculation on topics not amenable to empirical proof.
2. Aristotle divided his treatise on science into two parts. The world as-known-via-the-senses was labeled “physics” - what we call "Science" today. And the world as-known-by-the-mind, by reason, was labeled “metaphysics” - what we now call "Philosophy" .
3. Plato called the unseen world that hides behind the physical façade: “Ideal” as opposed to Real. For him, Ideal “forms” (concepts) were prior-to the Real “substance” (matter).
4. Physics refers to the things we perceive with the eye of the body. Meta-physics refers to the things we conceive with the eye of the mind. Meta-physics includes the properties, and qualities, and functions that make a thing what it is. Matter is just the clay from which a thing is made. Meta-physics is the design (form, purpose); physics is the product (shape, action). The act of creation brings an ideal design into actual existence. The design concept is the “formal” cause of the thing designed.
5. I use a hyphen in the spelling to indicate that I am not talking about Ghosts and Magic, but about Ontology (science of being).

Science is not materialistic.

Materialism was the metaphysical notion that all that exists is matter in space.

It was laid to rest by Newton - fields and such.

What if the mind, perhaps of ethereal substance doesn't effect the physical world and therefore cannot be measured? Maybe it is essentially 0 dimensional or omnipresent and cannot be quantified? And in any event even with physical measurements we keep underestimating the electrical and chemical effects within the brain. It is yet still too subtle. But assuming the brain is a receiver as some say, but not the mind, couldn't the mind influence the brain and the brain influences the body? What if we can't measure before a thought? Tedious perhaps, but what if that ended up being the case? Physics and science can operate within limited spaces if need be?

"If these mental properties affected the behavior of particles in the same way that physical properties like mass and electric charge do, then they would simply be another kind of physical property. . . . .Or is there something definitely new about it—either an entirely new kind of substance, as Rene Descartes would have had it, or at least a separate kind of property over and above the merely material?" . . .

I can always depend on Banno to get to the heart of a philosophical tangle. Traditionally, Dualism has postulated two different substances : A> physical, material & tangible, and B> meta-physical, immaterial & intangible. The latter was often assumed to be "super-natural" and somewhat miraculous. Hence, such "substances" were rejected by scientists as "beyond the purview of physical Science", hence literally and figuratively "immaterial". Those ghostly substances were relegated to the irrelevance of mystical and religious mumbo-jumbo, suitable only for primitive minds.

However, I don't think the "primitive minds" of ancient philosophers were defective. Some of them were clearly geniuses, but were working with an incomplete understanding of how the world works. So, I have tried to update their pre-scientific theories in view of 21st century knowledge. By combining non-classical & counter-intuitive insights of Quantum Theory with the novel notion of "Information as abstract (non-physical) Data that can be embodied in various substrates", I have concluded that the fundamental "substance" of Reality is actually Enformation (the power to enform), more broadly defined than Shannon's bits. In essence, it's like an ephemeral Quantum Field, but in practice it is like Energy : able to transform from invisible Causation into the tangible stuff we know as Matter, and back again : E=MC^2.

For modern scientific purposes, the concept of a single substance with dual forms is now taken for granted. But for Classical science it would have seemed bizarre. For example, Isaac Newton would have found the definition of Gravity-as-warped-space inconceivable. Now quantum scientists are forced to accept as realistic, such counter-intuitive notions as a dualistic Wave-Particle (one substance in two forms). So, I shouldn't come as a surprise that the mundane Information that has transformed modern culture could take on multiple forms. Hence, the apparent duality or multiplicity of Reality is built upon a single fundamental substance : the power to transform, as exemplified in Phase Change.

If "Information is neither Matter nor Energy" as asserted in the link below, what is it? My answer is that it is the un-realized "substance" that we call "Potential" : the ability to become both Matter and Energy. Thus, a single substance (monism) can take on two real forms (dualism). And, since "information" originally referred to the contents of a human mind (ideas), it can even take on a third form : Mind. Thus, mental phenomena are emergent forms of material and energetic "substances". And that is the Primary Substance of Aristotelian Metaphysics, which I label "Menta-Physics" for those who are able to accept Quantum Queerness, but not Metaphysical immateriality. :nerd:


"Gravity must be caused by an Agent acting constantly according to certain laws, but whether this Agent be material or immaterial I have left to the consideration of my readers." ___Isaac Newton

"Gravity may put the planets into motion, but without the divine Power, it could never put them into such a circulating motion as they have about the Sun; and therefore, for this as well as other reasons, I am compelled to ascribe the frame of this System to an intelligent Agent." ___Isaac Newton

Primary Substance : According to the generic sense, therefore, the substances in a given philosophical system are those things that, according to the system, are the foundational or fundamental entities of reality.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/substance/
Note : Atoms were once considered fundamental, but then superseded by tinier & tinier particles down to quarks, and now by holistic Fields. Hypothetically and Collectively, all physical fields compose the generic Enformation field.

Information is neither matter nor energy. ... In near equilibrium thermodynamics the amount of energy needed to store or transmit one bit is proportional to the absolute temperature. In physics we have both bits, qubits and e-bits, and these are incompatible notions of information.
https://www.researchgate.net/post/Is_Information_matter_energy_or_anything_else

IF there are two things in the world - say a physical world and mind - then how is it that mind can work to change physical stuff? — Banno

This is the conundrum that I believe can be resolved by accepting the poly-morphic nature of Information. If Information is "Mind-stuff", and also "Energy", and also "Matter", then a transformation from one to the other is plausible. Mind provides the Intention (direction, goal), and the body provides the Energy (ATP), to cause a specified part of the material body to move. Thus, Mind "works to change physical stuff". And that's how it is. :smile:

If we stipulate that a "substance" distinction between two objects means the two objects are incapable of acting upon one another, then the mind/body interaction problem is logically unresolvable if we claim minds and bodies are composed of different substances. Logic 101.

To salvage dualism and maintain the explanatory power it provides in separating conscious states from ordinary objects, the typical response is to assert the mind and body are different enough entities to require they are to be categorized separately, yet admit they share a common physical element that allows for interaction.

This approach is known as property dualism as opposed to substance dualism, but, in terms of the actual difference between the two approaches, it's hard to meaningfully decipher because the essence of the "physical" is undefined. That is, if one asserts the mind and body are greatly distinct, but both ultimately physical, then scoop me a sample of whatever that shared substance is so I can see it under my magnifying glass.

This is to say, all this talk of physical monism versus physical/non-physical dualism should require someone explain what it means to be physical and what it means to be non-physical.

What I think is going on here is that "physical" is being used to designate those objects that are able to interact with other objects also designated as "physical."

Ergo, what makes minds and bodies similar is that they can interact with one another, but I'm not willing to commit there's actually a physical similarity beyond that (that you can put under my microscope to see). That is, the shared "property" of minds and bodies is that they can interact

... when I decide to move my arm, my arm moves. So mind is part of the world. — Banno

:up:

Compositional fallacy.

The article stipulates, “...Mind-brain dualism is the view that brain and mind are derived from entirely different kinds of things—physical stuff and mind-stuff....”, and that, “...for dualism to be true, all of science would have to be false...” — Mww

[Descartes ...]

All that says nothing of other subsequent renditions of the stated dualism, but it’s always best to start from the beginning. — Mww

Of course not. But the argument that the article cites is not confined to restating Descartes definitions. Did you read any further than that opening sentences? (I wouldn't blame you if you didn't - it's pretty blah.)

It's not so much that the mind moves physical things, rather the mind is physical things. — Daemon

That's not dualism then, but identity.

As this can only happen if we are conscious, all physical stuff, by scientific necessity, has an unchanging ingredient or charge, which, when they massively and structured combine in our brain and body, give rise to consciousness. How else can it be? — Raymond

Um... Not that? Are you seriously suggesting that the only possible way that something can emerge is through aggregation of minute quantities of its basic ingredient into a lump of a particular size and shape? So I suppose round shapes are only possible because all matter that composes them has a bit of irreducible roundness in it?

If the mind IS a physical thing (i.e., mind=brain), then when you imagine a blue elephant in your mind, shouldn't there be a blue elephant inside your skull? — RogueAI

The correspondence between mental states and brain states

A computer may be programmed to give a response when input blue light. A brain may respond when sensing blue light.

As blue light is not physically present inside the computer, blue light does not need to be physically present inside the brain in order for the brain to respond when sensing blue light

It follows that a blue elephant does not need to be physically present inside the brain in order for the brain to respond when sensing a blue elephant.

Assuming Realism rather than Idealism, there are two possibilities regarding any correspondence between the brain state and the mental state.

Either the mental state mirrors their brain state, in which case when the brain state experiences a blue elephant, the mental state also experiences a blue elephant, ie Direct Realism.

Or the mental state is different to their brain state, in which case when the brain state experiences a blue elephant, the mental state could experience an orange crocodile, ie Indirect Realism

IE, whether one believes the mental state to be identical or not with the brain state depends on one's opinion as to Direct and Indirect Realism.

Did you read any further than that opening sentences? — SophistiCat

Yep, seeing as how the first snippet was from the beginning of the article, and the second from about half-way through it. But, yeah, I did skim over the life-after-death part, and bypassed completely the spiritual believer part.

I must say, though, “we struggle to imagine our absolute nonexistence”, isn’t the slightest, that “science forces us to accept that we are not living on a flat Earth” is a gross over-estimation of maritime history, but at the same time, it makes me all warm and fuzzy inside, to be informed I am “entirely normal and psychologically adaptive”.

Whether to advance my sympathies, or demean the author’s credibility.....I dunno. He’s a shrink, writing in a psychology journal, meaning he’s neither natural scientist nor philosopher, so yeah......blah, indeed.
————-

the argument that the article cites is not confined to restating Descartes definitions. — SophistiCat

I take this to mean the footnote, which is exactly what prompted me to comment in the first place, insofar as it appeared Carroll didn’t really know what Descartes’ definitions actually were. Or if he did, he misrepresented them. Be all that as it may, it is quite clear Descartes never intended his mind “substance” to interfere with the material or body “substance”, even going so far as to warn his readers not to confuse the two. Not his fault some of his successors did it anyway, and to this day, they still do. All because of one little word. I mean...if the guy needs to be shot, shoot him for the use of the pineal gland, not the use of a word.

And probably to everyone’s annoyance, I shall mention the fact it was Kant who removed mind from any form of manifest causality, relegating it to a mere logical condition, thereby eliminating any requisite Cartesian “substance” dualism.

Are you seriously suggesting that the only possible way that something can emerge is through aggregation of minute quantities of its basic ingredient into a lump of a particular size and shape — SophistiCat

I'm not suggesting it. And certainly not seriously. It's just the way it is. We are a whole of huge number of quarks and leptons. The non-material charges they carry are holistically combined and the dynamical structure gives rise to a conscious creature.

So already at the fundamental level, a primitive form of consciousness is present. Very primitive. An electron cloud around a proton isn't conscious in the way we are, of course. But when material structures grow more complex, so does the charge inside them, culminating in structures like the brain on which these primitive charges run collectively.

This is the only way to explain consciousness. To assume it's a basic ingredient of matter. Matter carries it along while at the same time it propagates matter. Electrons are propagated by charge inside them and the charges of other electrons pulling on them. Likewise for conscious creatures. Slightly more complicated though.

Maybe this is panpsychism maybe not. Does matter have conscious drives towards other matter? No, of course not. But it can't be denied that matter fields passively interact. It doesn't make sense to say charge is carried along or that it's in charge, so to speak, as they form an indivisible whole, like brain and body.

Compositional fallacy. — 180 Proof

I can't discover the fallacy.

It's just the way it is. — Raymond

Ah, I see that I've mistaken a statement of personal belief for an argument or a proposal. Carry on then.

I take this to mean the footnote, which is exactly what prompted me to comment in the first place, insofar as it appeared Carroll didn’t really know what Descartes’ definitions actually were. — Mww

What Descartes' precise beliefs about mind-body interaction were is still argued over by scholars (which suggests that said beliefs were far from precise), but Descartes doesn't own dualism (whether or not we accept the premise that he was the first dualist), and Cartesian exegesis is not a prerequisite for discussing modern-day dualist positions. Whatever Descartes said or didn't say about the issue of interaction, the issue still exists as a unique challenge for any form of dualism, and that is where attacks on dualism, including the one cited in the article, are often aimed at.

All good. With reference to.....

....attacks on dualism.... — SophistiCat

....do you think the attacks are legitimate, or is it just the human proclivity for arguing with each other?

That's all there is. Personal believes...

What if I said that there are only quarks and electrons?

It could be both, couldn't it? But to answer your question, yes, I think this is a legitimate criticism. If mind is truly apart from the corporeal world, then it is difficult to find a place for it in the world as we know it without denying or subverting the premise, or straying too far from the ordinary sense of the word.

Ah, I see that I've mistaken a statement of personal belief for an argument or a proposal. — SophistiCat

So an argument or proposal is not a statement of personal belief? They are just as well based on personal belief. Under an objective cover to shield criticism.

"The fallacy of composition is an informal fallacy that arises when one infers that something is true of the whole from the fact that it is true of some part of the whole."

I do exactly the opposite. I would be guilty of this fallacy if I claimed that consciousness can be explained by material processes.

If mind is truly apart from the corporeal world, then it is difficult to find a place for it in the world as we know it without denying or subverting the premise, or straying too far from the ordinary sense of the word. — SophistiCat

That's why it's easier to place it inside of the corporeal world. You can cut it loose, but then it's the question if the world can still exist.

Agreed, both.

Reason always seeks the unconditioned, something to use as an irreducible bottom line, for which mind seres the purpose. After the conception of it, barring logical self-contradiction or non-compliance with natural law, best just to leave it be.

If the arm moves, a quantifiable amount of energy has been expended. — Banno

This edit of yours is irrelevant.

The issue is one of whether or not the mind itself is strictly constituted of quantitative energy - such that each conceivable thought (and intention, desire, emotion, perspective, percept, ect.) is part of the quantitative energy of the universe that is conserved. If so, and if e = mc^2, then an individual thought is equivalent to some physical mass multiplied by the speed of light squared that, via the law of conservation, removes energy from the non-mental aspects of the universe by virtue of the thought’s occurrence. Um … yea, I don’t think so. Though I’m sure some physicalists may want to endorse such a view.

This is the subject entailed by a mind making, hence causing, a hand to move: is a mind itself physical?

p.s. You may be wanting to argue for epiphenomenalism, wherein the mind has no causal powers.

Can we be sure the brain is where the mind is? A friend likes to remind me that our digestive system contains more neurons than a cat's entire brain and generally cats do ok.

What if the mind, perhaps of ethereal substance doesn't effect the physical world and therefore cannot be measured? Maybe it is essentially 0 dimensional or omnipresent and cannot be quantified? And in any event even with physical measurements we keep underestimating the electrical and chemical effects within the brain. It is yet still too subtle. But assuming the brain is a receiver as some say, but not the mind, couldn't the mind influence the brain and the brain influences the body? What if we can't measure before a thought? Tedious perhaps, but what if that ended up being the case? Physics and science can operate within limited spaces if need be? — TiredThinker

The trouble is, your mind can decide to do something and then actually do it. So your mind does effect the physical world.

The same argument applies to the intriguing idea that the brain is a receiver for the mind. Whatever and wherever the mind-stuff is, it must be a part of the physical world if it is to have an affect on the bits and bobs that surround us. It must be measurable.

If it can move the things around us, but is not measurable, then the world threatens to become incoherent.