Is Dualism False?

[OccamsRazor]

After reading and participating in the "Is Dualism True?" debate another question has occurred to me.

Hormonal changes, narcotics and anti-psychotic medication can all affect one's mental processes. They can affect a individual's sensory input, their emotional state and even affect the decisions that they make.

Surely this means that the emotional capacity, and free-will of the human mind can directly be affected by chemical stimuli. This means therefore that the mind is an emergent property of a material construct. If the mind was non-material then such chemicals should surely have no effect.

Does this therefore mean that dualism simply cannot be true?

[McCulloch]

Welcome back and congratulations!

Yes, emotional capacity, and free-will of the human mind can directly be affected by chemical stimuli. But I don't think that this is enough to prove dualism false. Dualism asserts that there are two realms, the physical and the spiritual that affect our being. Chemical stimuli are part of the physical and certainly affect our being. Therefore the physical realm can be shown to exist. It does not necessarily follow that the spiritual realm does not.

For that we need to borrow your razor.

[OccamsRazor]

Welcome back and congratulations!

Thanks! I think that my sleeping days are over for some time....ahh well.

I understand your point McCulloch and I agree that we cannot show the non-existence of a non-material realm.
My specific issue is with the claim of dualism that the mind and its processes are non-material and that the spiritual nature of the mind is the source of its free-will. Harvey's "Is Dualism False?" argument exemplifies this by saying that, because (as he asserts) his machine cannot predict the processes in the human mind then the mind cannot be material. He suggests therefore that free-will makes our mental faculties a spirtual process.

I am suggesting that the freedom of will is a little more limited than is imagined by this philosophy and that the very fact that such material stimuli can affect these freedoms brings the idea of a non-material mind into question.

[McCulloch]

My specific issue is with the claim of dualism that the mind and its processes are non-material and that the spiritual nature of the mind is the source of its free-will.

The issue would be resolved by your chemical example if you could find a dualist that claimed that the mind and its processes are entirely non-material.

Harvey's "Is Dualism False?" argument exemplifies this by saying that, because (as he asserts) his machine cannot predict the processes in the human mind then the mind cannot be material.

Harvey's machine has only been shown to be not able to predict the process of a human mind that has been given prior access to its predictions. His machine shows that a properly constructed contrary-wise device also has free will, but let's not rehash that!

He suggests therefore that free-will makes our mental faculties a spiritual process.

Dualism is therefore the logical result of the rejection of determinism. If there is something other than material determination and random events which influence our will, that something is defined as being spiritual.

I am suggesting that the freedom of will is a little more limited than is imagined by this philosophy and that the very fact that such material stimuli can affect these freedoms brings the idea of a non-material mind into question.

I will agree with you as far as going to say that the kind of things you describe are evidence which support a non-dualistic view. That coupled with the complete lack of evidence to support the dualistic view, leads me to accept the materialist view.

[Enrique]

The mind could be made of matter and spirit. Therefore, emotional capacity and free will can be affected by chemical stimulation but still the result is a combination of both.

Harvey's machine has only been shown to be not able to predict the process of a human mind that has been given prior access to its predictions. His machine shows that a properly constructed contrary-wise device also has free will, but let's not rehash that!

Sorry for being annoying, but what if the access to the prediction in the reality provokes the device or human being to do it so.

[McCulloch]

The mind could be made of matter and spirit.

Or it could be made of matter only. I don't think we have proven it one way or another.

Therefore, emotional capacity and free will can be affected by chemical stimulation but still the result is a combination of both.

If we accept dualism. But that would be begging the question, wouldn't it?

Harvey's machine has only been shown to be not able to predict the process of a human mind that has been given prior access to its predictions. His machine shows that a properly constructed contrary-wise device also has free will, but let's not rehash that!

Sorry for being annoying, but what if the access to the prediction in the reality provokes the device or human being to do it so.

I think that is my main argument against Harvey's alleged proof of free-will. He attempted to prove that free-will existed with the classic logical structure of assuming the opposite of what is to be proved, showing that that assumption leads to a contradiction and so concluding that the what is to be proved then must be true.

His logic ran something like this:

1. Assume that humans do not have free will, therefore, in theory, a machine could be constructed that would correctly predict human behaviour.
2. When a human's behaviour has been predicted, the human can choose to do other than what was predicted.
3. Therefore, a machine cannot, even in theory, be built which can accurately predict human behaviour and humans have free will.

The flaw in this logic is allowing a feedback loop into the process. If the human knows the prediction, then the prediction is not valid. To illustrate the fallacy, I proposed building a simple device. This device will only act when a prediction of its behaviour is fed into it. It will always do something other than what was predicted.
His logic would then re-run something like this:

1. Assume that this device does not have free will, therefore, a machine could be constructed that would correctly predict the device's behaviour.
2. When a device's behaviour has been predicted, the device always chooses to do other than what was predicted.
3. Therefore, a machine cannot, be built which can accurately predict the device's behaviour and this device has free will.

This shows that Harvey's attempt at proving human free-will is not valid. The same logical argument that he used to prove human free-will can be used to prove that a simple deterministic device has free-will. What has not been done, is to prove or disprove free-will.
Rather than simply accept that his proof was not valid, Harvey then went on to try to rescue his argument by adding counter-factual tables and infinite loops, which did not, in the end validate the argument at all. That is the part I really do not want to rehash.

[Enrique]

The mind could be made of matter and spirit.

Or it could be made of matter only. I don't think we have proven it one way or another.

Therefore, emotional capacity and free will can be affected by chemical stimulation but still the result is a combination of both.

If we accept dualism. But that would be begging the question, wouldn't it?

I agree. I didn't mean to say dualism is true or false but that the fact that chemical stimulation affects free will and emotional capacity doesn't imply that there's no dualism as replay to OccamsRazor initial question.

Sorry for being annoying, but what if the access to the prediction in the reality provokes the device or human being to do it so.

I think that is my main argument against Harvey's alleged proof of free-will. He attempted to prove that free-will existed with the classic logical structure of assuming the opposite of what is to be proved, showing that that assumption leads to a contradiction and so concluding that the what is to be proved then must be true.

His logic ran something like this:

1. Assume that humans do not have free will, therefore, in theory, a machine could be constructed that would correctly predict human behaviour.
2. When a human's behaviour has been predicted, the human can choose to do other than what was predicted.
3. Therefore, a machine cannot, even in theory, be built which can accurately predict human behaviour and humans have free will.


The flaw in this logic is allowing a feedback loop into the process. If the human knows the prediction, then the prediction is not valid. To illustrate the fallacy, I proposed building a simple device. This device will only act when a prediction of its behaviour is fed into it. It will always do something other than what was predicted.
His logic would then re-run something like this:

1. Assume that this device does not have free will, therefore, a machine could be constructed that would correctly predict the device's behaviour.
2. When a device's behaviour has been predicted, the device always chooses to do other than what was predicted.
3. Therefore, a machine cannot, be built which can accurately predict the device's behaviour and this device has free will.


This shows that Harvey's attempt at proving human free-will is not valid. The same logical argument that he used to prove human free-will can be used to prove that a simple deterministic device has free-will. What has not been done, is to prove or disprove free-will.

In a thought ideal escenario which involves a device and the machine and 3 buttons the argument fails, as the machine can't predict device's behaviour. But in a real world human-machine situation may be different. As it's not a model, there are infinite not known components involved, so there can exist the case where the machine knowing how the entire world works can make a prediction that once it's received by the human affects him in a way that he can not change the prediction.
The common sense might say 'what can make me not do something different from the prediction'.
You don't know if the components unknown by you but not by the machine have the power to make you do as predicted.
So the question is: Can you ask the machine for a prediction that doesn't enforce you to do it so?
Besides, if the machine knows how the world works it can inform you if dualism is true.
Harvey's said the machine may know how our brain works with help with the lastest technology. I took the license to extends its knowlodge to the universe as the brain is affected by it.
In the thread came up the concept of randomness. The device has a random unit to generate its choses. But I think that randomness goes opposite to knowledge.
If the machine knows the algorithm of the device, should also has control over the random unit, but if it knows how the random unit works then it's not random. Then I think that randomness and ideal full knowledge of a situation mutually exclude.
It was posted that there are sources of randomness in the universe. Then we can't build a machine having full knowledge of the universe and thus the human can actually prevent the prediction from happening. But the cause was randomness not free will.

Rather than simply accept that his proof was not valid, Harvey then went on to try to rescue his argument by adding counter-factual tables and infinite loops, which did not, in the end validate the argument at all. That is the part I really do not want to rehash.

Yes, I perceived the same.

For that we need to borrow your razor.

Don't you think that death has the same constraint as dualism proof and that God may have made it up so we can finally resolve the ultimate questions without becoming God ourselves?

[Bugmaster]

The issue would be resolved by your chemical example if you could find a dualist that claimed that the mind and its processes are entirely non-material.

Sorry, but I thought most of the dualists did just that ? If a dualist allows at least parts of the mind to be material, he's just opening himself up for the obvious question: if parts of the mind are material, then why can't all of it be material ? How do material parts affect the spiritual parts ? Have you heard of this Ockham guy, he has quite a collection of sharp bladed instruments ? Etc.

[McCulloch]

The issue would be resolved by your chemical example if you could find a dualist that claimed that the mind and its processes are entirely non-material.

Sorry, but I thought most of the dualists did just that ? If a dualist allows at least parts of the mind to be material, he's just opening himself up for the obvious question: if parts of the mind are material, then why can't all of it be material ? How do material parts affect the spiritual parts ? Have you heard of this Ockham guy, he has quite a collection of sharp bladed instruments ? Etc.

For sake of argument, let us assume that there are two types of dualist

• those who hold that the mind is entirely non-material
• those who hold that the mind cannot be entirely material, therefore some parts of the mind are non-material.

Maybe I was not listening very well, but I did not notice any dualists claiming the first position. If there were, then they would be easily refuted by the existence of mind altering drugs, hormones and brain injury. The second category might not be so easily refuted. They would claim that free-will cannot be attributed to a bunch of atoms configured in a specific way. Therefore, if there is free-will, there must be some non-material influence on the mind.

[Bugmaster]

Maybe I was not listening very well, but I did not notice any dualists claiming the first position. If there were, then they would be easily refuted by the existence of mind altering drugs, hormones and brain injury.

Yeah, I've been trying that for a while now, without much success. I get replies like these:

* Mind and body are linked by some mysterious mechanism (possibly God himself)
* Taking a drug involves mental, as well as physical processes. Your mind gets high because you think it will get high.
* Your mind gets confused by physcial signals from the body; you can learn to ignore them if your mind is developed enough

None of these arguments sound particularly persuasive to me, but that's me, I'm a materialist...