On naturalism and consciousness

[bennyboy]

This quote from the current text I'm reading stuck out to me:

"If, instead of supposing that material structures themselves sometimes think, we assumed that there are immaterial substances, minds, or souls, associated with our bodies, we should have to say that matter somehow acts upon these immaterial things (in perception). This is as hard to understand as how material structures could think; yet we have to accept one or other of these. The problem is one that Berkeley saw very clearly: once we admit that there is a material world at all, we cannot deny that material things casually affect consciousness; but then we have no good reason for saying that material things could not be conscious; nor, finally, for saying that material things could not in themselves give rise to consciousness." - J.L. Mackie, 'The Miracle of Theism'

(Mackie's conclusion at the end of the chapter is that "once we have rejected, as we must, both the extreme materialism that would deny even distinctively mental properties and the complete immaterialism of Berkeley or of phenomenalism, we are stuck with some kind of dualism; and unless this is an absurdly extreme dualism it must admit psychophysical laws or lawlike correlations of some sort.")

First of all, is the bolded word meant to be "causally," or as you've quoted it?

I agree with Mackie's view on the problem of dualism, but I cannot understand why he "admits a material world at all." I assume in the text you quoted, he addressed why he isn't willing to consider an idealistic reality as a contender.

Question for you: you seem to be gravitating toward property dualism as well. If so, do you mean that mind may supervene on the brain, as a physical property, or that the nature of matter is intrinsically dual in nature, i.e. the universe is made of a kind of psychophysical stuff?