Dualism vs Materialism or Mind vs Soul

[Neo-Scholastic]

It does no such thing, who told you this?

That's how I read Rene Descartes' Discourse on Method. You reduce complex systems to their smallest effective components that have measurable results. Viva La Revolution!

[Sal]

Qualia is false.

There is only one size: the material.

What exactly this material is, is best explained via a naturalistic worldview supported by the sciences, IMO.

[Neo-Scholastic]

Qualia is false.

How can qualia be false? They just are. Are you saying that no one, not even you, actually experiences anything?

[Sal]

Qualia is false.

How can qualia be false? They just are. Are you saying that no one, not even you, actually experiences anything?

What is this size -I-?

I am of the conviction that everything is reducible to the material. An idea, no matter what it is, is reducible to occurring in the brain. Spoken words are just sounds that are just vibrations in an atmosphere and so on. I think this is the same deal with everything that arises in my brain. "Thought" is just neural activity. So no, -I- don't actually experience anything.

These are constructs, sophisticated yes, but constructs nevertheless. Language is a construct able to articulate things not possible to exist in reality; that alone I think lends power to these constructs built by language. But do I think these constructs are reality? No.

I'm just one of Universes way to know itself and so is everyone else with a mind, however humble that mind may be. And "mind" is a construct of the brain that is part of reality.

[Neo-Scholastic]

Your post is both ridiculous and intellectually dishonest. You deny the "I" of your personal identity yet refer to yourself repeatedly. You simultaneously assert that you lack mental properties then use those same metal properties to express your opinion. It is pathetic that you would advocate such an absurd philosophy, knowing full well that you are incapable of living in accordance with it.

[Raven]

OK, thought is most assuredly neural activity. But those are my thoughts, not some other persons. It is, after all my brain they are occurring in. Whatever one may think of Descartes, he was right about “Cogito Ergo Sum”. If we did not think then we would not really be, not in any meaningful sense. It is one thing to posit that each of us is yet another way for the Universe to know itself and collectively add to the reality. I could go along with that. But to say that “I am just one of the ways” doesn't work so well. We are all better than that.

@Chad – Qualia is something I am not even remotely acquainted with. Would you be so kind as to post a link so I could find something out about it. Thanks

[Sal]

Your post is both ridiculous and intellectually dishonest. You deny the "I" of your personal identity yet refer to yourself repeatedly. You simultaneously assert that you lack mental properties then use those same metal properties to express your opinion. It is pathetic that you would advocate such an absurd philosophy, knowing full well that you are incapable of living in accordance with it.

(emphasis mine)

That's because you're, I reckon, unable to realize that the self is an illusion.

Tell me, if I was to say "square circles exist" do you think that makes it so?

Now, how is that different from claiming that the self exists? I've yet to encounter a coherent definition of self that isn't just tricks of language the same way that saying that square circles exists.

That you're unable to see this distinction makes me believe that you think that dualism is correct and that numbers and letters exist apart of our minds. I do not think that, and my views most align with naturalism and I reject any form of dualism.

A way to illustrate my point is this: what you're seeing now, I reckon, are just black configurations of pixels onto a gray background of pixels in a digital device that emits visible light. If you had never encountered English or even text, you would not be able to read any of this. it would be just eccentric light out of a screen. But since you have, I reckon, learned English and to decipher letters into words and words into sentences, makes me think that you're entrapped into that thinking that this has some sort of special meaning apart of seeing visible light on a screen.

It's not that difficult a concept.

---

OK, thought is most assuredly neural activity. But those are my thoughts, not some other persons. It is, after all my brain they are occurring in. Whatever one may think of Descartes, he was right about “Cogito Ergo Sum”. If we did not think then we would not really be, not in any meaningful sense. It is one thing to posit that each of us is yet another way for the Universe to know itself and collectively add to the reality. I could go along with that. But to say that “I am just one of the ways” doesn't work so well. We are all better than that.

Descartes meant that by denying it, you're effectively using the basis of it (the concept that thought exists) to deny it. I have no problem realizing it, I just have a more fundamental basis for thinking why that is correct.

I have no problem saying that thought exists. I just see it as neural activity that is able to be probed by means not usually assigned to it.

I mean here that, for example, with a fMRI we can see where thought arises in someones brain. But I'm doubly aware that since that can be viewed and is most decidedly part of reality, why should thought or the accumulation of experiences, the Self, be any different?

[Whateverist]

.. you're, I reckon, unable to realize that the self is an illusion.

Tell me, if I was to say "square circles exist" do you think that makes it so?

Now, how is that different from claiming that the self exists? I've yet to encounter a coherent definition of self that isn't just tricks of language the same way that saying that square circles exists.

That you're unable to see this distinction makes me believe that you think that dualism is correct and that numbers and letters exist apart of our minds. I do not think that, and my views most align with naturalism and I reject any form of dualism.

..

I mean here that, for example, with a fMRI we can see where thought arises in someones brain. But I'm doubly aware that since that can be viewed and is most decidedly part of reality, why should thought or the accumulation of experiences, the Self, be any different?

Dualism is a logically challenged concept whose only saving grace is its leading to slightly less absurd results than Monism. It may be the attempt to apply the Dualism-Monism spectrum which is to blame. Long before I assent to saying my sense of self is an illusion I should prefer to ask what the necessity is in deciding between these two perspectives.

I am a thorough naturalist given that no one has demonstrated anything to be supernatural or other than natural. Really the only reasonable use of the word "natural" is in distinction with things man-made, and even then, given that we ourselves are natural, so too must be all that we produce.

I would be interested to hear what it is that you reject by calling the "self" an illusion. You seem not to like any existing definition of it, so which do you intend when you call that an illusion? More importantly, who is doing the rejecting if it isn't your self?

[Neo-Scholastic]

@Chad – Qualia is something I am not even remotely acquainted with. Would you be so kind as to post a link so I could find something out about it. Thanks

No problem:
Stanford Encyclopedia for Qualia

Or if you prefer:

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That's because you're, I reckon, unable to realize that the self is an illusion.

You're done more than that. You have gone so far as to suggest that consciousness itself is an illusion. If so, of what is it an illusion? Anyway, I see little point in answering the questions of someone who had convinced themselves that they are a zombie.

[Ben Davis]

Which makes him an honest materialist. He has the guts to admit that the materialist position is not as strong you believe it is.

My opinion of the strength of the materialist position is beside the point. The preponderance of evidence points to the materialist position (e.g. biology, neurology, psychology). He admits that his arguments are not founded in the evidence which makes them speculation. I continued reading to see if he had anything interesting to say...

It's pretty obvious that you cherry-picked the paper to find out of context quotes to justify your lack of curiosity.

Hardly! All I did was point out the flaws. If I lacked curiosity, I would not have read the paper in the first place. As it was, I gave it a fair go but I could only take so many 'I have no evidence... here's a quick misrepresentation... you don't have to know what you're talking about...' statements before I found myself unable to take what otherwise might have been an interesting set of thoughts seriously; you know, if they actually were supported by some evidence or based on a rational examination.

Clearly your own materialism is not based on rational considerations if you will not take challenges to your views seriously.

I gave no indication of my considerations in my post so your comment is misinformed and clearly designed to misrepresent me. Did you even stop to ask me what informs my position? No. Since you're moving to ad-homs so quickly, I'd suggest that it's you who has problems with challenge. As for me, I take serious challenges to my position seriously but I take frivolous challenges with a pinch of salt.