(June 15, 2013 at 12:19 pm)Faith No More Wrote:(June 14, 2013 at 9:43 pm)FallentoReason Wrote: I'm not so quick to dismiss dualism because I think the debate between materialism and immaterialism about the mind is fairly even.
Really? I have yet to see a concrete definition for the soul, and the only defense for its existence seems to be "Well, we don't know how the brain does this..." Due to neurological studies and brain injuries, we know that many facets of what we consider the mind are dependent upon the physical structure of the brain, and even such key elements that we use to identify what makes us who we are, such as personality, can be altered with a physical change to the brain.
It's not definitive proof by a long-shot, however, I am wondering why you consider the debate to be fairly even.
Dualism incorporates all that. If one is a substance dualist, then the belief is that the mind is a combination of causal relations (i.e. complex neuronal structures and other physical aspects of the brain) and qualia (i.e. how we experience qualities and properties of things, such as an apple's "redness").
"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it" ~ Aristotle
