A review of Reductive Materialism vs Substance Dualism by Tertius #Covfefe @TertiusIII

Reductive Materialism vs Substance Dualism by  Tertius #Covfefe @TertiusIII

[my comments in brackets and highlighted italics]


I once heard of an interesting exchange as follows. An inquisitive young philosophy student once asked his professor: 'Sir, what is matter?' Without giving it a thought, the professor quickly responded: 'Never mind.'

[In my haste I misread the opening sentence: "heard of", my apologies. Nonetheless, the rest of the comments and notes on the original essay stand until someone points out issues and they are clarified or corrected. Also, see the addendum that follows (below)]

[Addendum: Thanks to Bruce: This little 'chestnut' is an old trope that's been making the rounds forever: (https://quoteinvestigator.com/2018/08/30/matter-mind/). I hadn't twigged to it, so thanks Bruce for pointing it out. So, this little introductory anecdote isn't original thought or personal experience either. It's a regurgitation of an old joke.]

Unsatisfied with this rather flippant answer, the student then asked: "Well sir, then what is mind?' to which the professor replied: 'No matter.' But that does seem to be an important question - just what is mind?

[Again, how were you party to this? Or is this pure fiction to perform legitimacy? ]

This is but one of a myriad of things for which the #Atheist has no good answer, and certainly no real empirical evidence but instead clings only to #BlindFaith. I believe the problem of mind-brain will ultimately be the downfall of metaphysical naturalism.

[The first sentence; it's a spurious generalization. You're arguing that atheists are not empiricists; you do realize that scientists are empiricists? And that all any atheist asks for is empirical evidence for the claims of theism. To date there has certainly been no real empirical evidence that supports the claims made by religions such as Christianity and many of its adherents credulously embrace what they're told without ever raising an eyebrow. 

The self-referencing (circular) logic of using the bible as evidence has been dismissed out of hand for a very long time, and here we are, as you cobble together an argument for the existence of an unseen world employing substance dualism, which in the end, ignoring the physiological dependencies between mind and brain, and ignoring the lack of evidence that consciousness in the form, changes state or departs the body in any form.  Evidence for this change of energetic states? None. What you have is an ontological argument that affords you hope that death isn't the end. You have no way to prove your hypothesis. None.

Furthermore, if you were to provide empirical evidence for the existence of yours (or any other god), atheists would, in the face of the evidence, change their mind. Mind you, at that point it would be a matter of fact, not faith. Notwithstanding this, there still hasn't been any empirical evidence presented for the existence gods, or devils, angels, santa, the tooth fairy. Atheists keep asking for empirical evidence of these things, and yet none has been provided, ever. 

As to blind faith? Yes, you did write from a position of blindness and faith; you have a hammer and now everything you see is a nail. What you've written nothing more than specious sophistry complete with special pleading personal incredulity and arguments from ignorance on your part.

In terms of your statement of the downfall of metaphysical naturalism, is this your original thought? Or did you borrow it? If it is yours, is this a claim to authority on the topic on your part? What are your credentials in this field of study? (not that you're willing to disclose anything like your academic credentials).

Not there's anything wrong with being self-taught, however the burden of proof on you at this point is just that much heavier, since you have to prove your argument and the knowledge, experience and recognition to make the assertions. If you are you making the argument as a layperson who has invested time in reading on the topic, how much time have you invested in reading the opposing literature? Or have you simply read material that satisfies your personal biases and not engaged with the counter arguments and other data? Also known as feeding your cognitive and confirmation biases. ]

The following points come from a book on tape I have called "Philosophy of Mind: Brains, Consciousness, and Thinking Machines" by Professor Patrick Grim. Consider the following facts:

["Philosophy of Mind: Brains, Consciousness, and Thinking Machines" I've put this on my reading list for later. It seems an interesting read based on my earlier readings of Braitenberg.]

• You have a mind and you have a body
[granted]
• These work together. They interact. When you die, they won't. And, your mind either continues to exist or it does not.
[Granted: However, the preponderance of physiological evidence suggests that when the brain dies all neural functions cease. There is a lack of evidence for any form of energy transfer, change of state (apart from the cessation of function and the onset of decay processes) or neuro-electrical activity from the decedent physical form to non-corporeal one has not been proven.]
• Your body is physical. It is observable and is therefore public.
[Also granted, and?]
• Your mind is not observable. It is private.
[granted, with some discussion of mental illness and other disease states affecting neurological function; acting out, hallucinations, etc.]
• You are the only one with access to your mind. (Consider 1Cor 2:11)
[yes, with possible exceptions for the written, spoken and performed word, the ability of the human species to translate their thoughts, albeit through intermediary media, but to great effect.]

[also, 1 Cor 2:11 basically says you know your own mind, but that no one can know the mind of god. So? As god is supposed to omniscient he would know your thoughts; which would render Pascale's wager and anyone attempting to pull it off it moot, but that's another discussion.]

So now, the question is how best to explain these facts. Skipping the least generally accepted monist views (idealism, eliminative materialism, emergence, epiphenomalism [Epiphenomenalism], etc), there are basically only a couple of remaining views:

The Reductionist Materialistic explanation:
[aka: the physiological, biological (medical) and the physiology of the brain, its functions,  neurotransmitters, autonomic systems, and a discussion of the mind/brain relationship.]

Now at some level, we all know what the brain is and what most of its properties are.

[if we're talking to a more learned audience, yes. The general population isn't quite so well informed, but do go on.]
It is the control center of the body and its properties include things like mass; volume; various electro-chemical, neurophysiological reactions; physicality; location; etc.

[How about an introduction to the gross anatomy of the brain that introduces and discusses the regions of the brain that support higher reasoning, memory, language, sensory, motor functions and speech and how they are relevant to the paper? Many of the brain's functions are autonomic, yes - accounting for everything from breathing to voiding bodily wastes, which can be ignored for now. No discussion of disease or trauma states to the brain? Why not? Neuroplasticity and brain trauma; stroke, impact or projectile etc. is both useful and material to the mind/brain relationship.]

Similarly, we understand the mind to be the center of rationality and reasoning capability; volition; creativity; emotion; self-awareness and the perception of our senses, i.e. qualia.

[This is a long-standing topic - the mind-brain relationship. So far, no disagreement, keep going.]

But unlike the brain, the mind does not appear to be physical at all. It has none of the attributes of the physical brain, rather, it is immaterial. And thus the question arises, where does the mind come from? Or as our aforementioned philosophy student might ask, 'What is Mind?'

[Wait - "might ask?" weren't you party to this conversation?]
[Nothing new here, this is an age-old chestnut. Keep going.]

Now to the strict monist-materialist, there are is fundamentally only one answer here. That is the reductionist materialistic explanation. According to this view, all the processes of mind ultimately reduce down the electrochemical processes occurring within the brain.

The mind arises directly from the neurophysiologic [neologism: as in this isn't a word. Did you mean neurophysiological?] processes occurring in the brain and is nothing more than the by-product of these processes. But how do these physical neurophysiologic [neologism] processes taking place within a physical brain cause immaterial effects like Qualia, Intentionality, Consciousness and self-awareness, etc?

[again, what other neurological; neurochemical & physiological states and conditions affect the mental state (the mind) of a patient/person and why aren't you discussing them? Fasting has been known to alter the mind (mental state) of people; altered mind as a result of depriving the body and brain of water and or nutrition. How does substance dualism deal with stress, disease and states of trauma again? Can you conclusively prove that the mind of a person dying of advanced hunger, disease of the brain or head trauma is intact inside, and yet separate from the brain? What other researchers and authors have you consulted?]

Most commonly, the Reductionist explanation holds that mental states (i.e. mind) arise from neural states (i.e. brain states). In other words, there is an identity between mental states, and neural states. For example, the mental state: 'I need to put on a rain coat and get an umbrella' corresponds to the firing of some underlying collection of neurons. And every time I have that mental state, that same collection of neurons fire. But there is a problem here. Our mental states seem never to occur in isolation. Consider this example roughly paraphrased from Edward Feser's book "Philosophy of Mind." My mental state: 'I need to put on a rain coat and get an umbrella' seems necessarily to exist in conjunction with several other mental states as follows:
[Philosophy of Mind." added to the reading list]
1. I need to go outside
2. It's raining outside
3. If I go outside in the rain, I might get sick
4. It is not pleasant when I am sick
5. I need to put on a rain coat and get an umbrella before I go outside so I don't get sick

Now note that states 1 - 4 seem logically to entail state 5. And note also, that according to the Reductionist, there are underlying neural states corresponding to each of the above mental states. These neural states consist of collections of neurons firing and releasing neurotransmitters and so causally interacting with each other.

But here's the problem. There seems to be no way to explain how the logical relationship existing between the above mental states can possibly be explained by some underlying causal, physical relationship existing between collections of neuronal firings. Stated differently, how does a causal, physical relationship between neurons entail a logical relationship between mental states?

[So because you can't explain it, what are you proposing? Personal incredulity/ignorance and a lack of supporting data or research. And then?]

[You've arrived at a question that requires further examination, now what data are you going to access to prove or disprove (falsify) the hypothesis? Surely there are other neuroscientists writing on this?]

To make things even worse. Consider the mental state 'is in pain'. The burden on the reductive materialist is to identify the underlying physiochemical neural states such that any animal and not just mammals may be found to manifest a mental state 'is in pain.' But the problem is, animals are different and brains are different. The firing of certain C-fibers in a human brain, might correspond to 'is in pain', but a reptile or a bird may have a completely different set of underlying neural states. If so, how do we really know that the other creature really 'is in pain' as a human is? And then, what if the other creature is an alien from another planet and is a form of life not based on carbon? If it attacks, you shoot it and it writhes on the ground moaning, can we truly say it 'is in pain'? So the problem of multiple instantiability of mental states to underlying neural states makes it impossible to state that the mental state of 'is in pain' maps to this and only this underlying neural state.

[pain is a physiological/neurological state. What research did you access to examine pain in complex versus less complicated nervous systems?]

[and why is this a 'worse' situation?]
And if this isn't already bad enough, another problem (last one, I promise) for the materialist is the problem of the continuation of the self over time. Consider a chair sitting in the corner of your living room. As you observe the chair over several minutes, you might wonder how you know it is the same chair you are observing from moment to moment rather than a different chair. Now suppose you observe your chair and in one instant the chair you were observing is annihilated and another chair identical in every respect down to the quantum level appears instantaneously in another corner of your living room you might wonder, 'Is this the same chair? Apart from the fact that it has moved, it is identical in every respect.' Now, in the case of the 1st chair, the materialistic determinist would say that the chair is the same from moment to moment but in the case of the 2nd chair, you would be observing two different chairs. Why? Because of material continuity. The 1st chair is continuous materially but the 2nd chair is not materially continuous with the 1st. The 1st chair existed but was obliterated. The fact that another chair, identical in every respect, appeared in another corner of the room is irrelevant. It is not the same chair because at the molecular and even quantum level, the particles comprising the chair, even though arranged in exactly the same way, are not the same particles. Material continuity does not exist in the second scenario whereas it does in the first.

[So what's your point? Is this where you were going with Leibnitz? To what end? Continuity is a product of... what? A neurochemical process in a living creature? Our physiological state isn't a constant, there are variations over time that are the result of stress states, nutrition, rest or the lack of it, hydration (too much, too little), hunger - we're far from perfect and 'normal' physiological state is a spectrum at best. Homeostasis isn't 'stasis']

[Have you read R.D. Laing, The Politics of Experience & The Bird of Paradise? Worth a read: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Politics_of_Experience_and_The_Bird_of_Paradise]

Now consider the mind. If the mind arises due to a combination of states existing in the brain then in what sense can a person's identity be considered to be continuous if the states in the brain are constantly changing? If the underlying neurophysiologic [neologism] states are continually changing, giving rise to ever changing states of the mind then self identity cannot be considered to be continuous. So if you are a materialist and you think you are the same self reading these words now who began reading words at the beginning of this post, think again.

[Who are you citing as research for these assertions? ]

So for these reasons and others, the reductionist view though common within 'simplistic, popular atheism' so prevalent on twitter, enjoys less support among the experts.

[Which experts? A list of sources for these experts along with their responses. In what contexts? Are you going to provide specifics? Or just make a general, unsupported claim?. Are you yourself claiming expertise? If you are claiming expertise, on what grounds? Are you a qualified neuroscientist? Or a layperson with a reading list?]

Substance Dualism:
Now, for the #Atheist who has no other alternative, either the reductive or the non-reductive materialist views are the only options. However, as we've seen, these views posses numerous, serious problems. But not to worry, there is another view, a better view which is called Substance Dualism.

[rather pronounced confirmation bias - you haven't engaged with the atheist position at all. Your blind faith, cognitive bias and the desperate need not to be wrong is preventing you from engaging with the contexts in motion. You're not an impartial, empirical researcher - you have an agenda and are performing that agency here. It's not helping your argument because anyone engaging with you on this will never get fair hearing. Again, hammer therefore nails everywhere.]

[Substance Dualism is a purely ontological position. What are the data and evidence that a dementia patient's mind is whole and unaffected and contained inside a failing physical brain?]

According to this view, the mind and the brain are independent ontological entities which interact with one another. This view has the advantage of being able to explain how drugs and brain injury affect mind and how mind controls brain.

[Does it? What are your proofs? What about brain injuries and neuroplasticity? What about diseases of the brain like vascular dementia and Alzheimer's disease? How are these explained in this context?  What are your sources? ]

In their book "The Self and Its Brain: An Argument for Interactionism" Karl Popper (Philosopher of Science) and John Eccles (Nobel prize winning neurologist) draw the following (though imperfect) analogy of how the mind and brain interact. Their best illustration is of a pianist composer who sits at his piano to play his instrument. The pianist represents mind and the piano represents brain. The mind operates the brain in much the same way that the pianist plays his instrument. If the instrument is damaged or out of tune, the music will be distorted. In the same way, if the brain is damaged or on drugs, the mind will not be able to operate it as intended. Conversely, the sounds of the instrument provide feedback to the mind in much the same way that the brain provides information in its stores, and sensory inputs back to the mind.

[Disease states including dementia, affect the brain and as a result, the mind. Memory and recall are affected to the point of non-function. The observer has few options (if any)  to access the inner dialog of the patient. There's no way for an observing party to know concretely what the Alzheimer's patient is thinking. Externally, the dementia patient is unable to communicate easily or at all. Accessing memory, even the basics of speech diminishing over time from the disease. In your view how does substance dualism account for the disease state? What evidence do you have that the patient's mind is separate and intact from the neurological plaque or vascular failure?]

Now here's the significance from a theological perspective. Take away the instrument and the musician still exists. This is because the brain and mind are independent ontological entities. The pianist does not depend on the piano for his existence, nor does the mind depend on the brain for its existence.

[Ah yes, theology: the assertion of the unknowable by the utterly ignorant. Bold (unsubstantiated) assertion; what's your evidence? This is aspirational thinking at best. You want to believe this because it's comforting. The thought of nothingness after all of this experience is terrifying to you. Why? Again, what are your proofs? Where is your evidence?]

[special pleading, an argument from ignorance/incredulity - you're either in denial in the face of the finality of death, which granted, can be terrifying when one considers all that one won't know again, but at the point of death you're in no position to communicate anything to anyone; your death isn't your problem, it falls to the living to pick up after you and somehow comprehend and appreciate the facts and artifacts of your life as lived.]

Thus, when the body (brain) dies, the mind lives on. That is because it is ontologically independent of brain. This hypothesis has the advantage that it explains how mind and brain can have such dissimilar properties but also interact at some level producing cause and effect chains in both directions.

[special pleading, personal incredulity again as well as an argument from ignorance - you don't and can't know. Nor can you ascertain the state of mind of a patient with brain trauma or degenerative disease. You have provided zero proof that the mind is independent of the brain nor that it can change state from electro & neurochemical processes to any other energetic state.]
[important word, hypothesis: what are your proofs? what's your methodological approach to prove it? What does existing data indicate? How does current data affect your hypothesis? Again, your hypothesis is proof of nothing outside a desire not to die or to view death as transitional and not a final state.]
[more unsubstantiated/unsupported assertions. Also, define "at some level" is this an attempt to account for disease or injury? Expand on this please.]

 Thus fire burns the hand which in turn is processed by the brain, causing the effect of a sensation of pain in the mind to which the mind responds by willing the hand to move away from the flame causing a physical movement of the body.

[So? What about degenerative or traumatic disease states affecting brain function? See previous comments.]

But the question is, how do we know this view is more correct than the others? Let us now reason to the best explanation from among multiple competing hypotheses (abduction).

How does the Dualist do this? Let's first start with a simple yet powerful argument from Rene Descartes and Gottfried Leibnitz. Though Leibnitz was born almost a century later than Descartes, we'll start with his law of the 'Indistinguishibility of Identicals.'

According to Leibnitz, two things are identical if and only if (iff) everything you can say about one, you can and must be able to say about the other. If there is anything you can say about one that you cannot say about the other, then the two things cannot be identical.

[your point? where are you going with this? How are you applying this?]

From there, let's move on to Descartes. Descartes was a brilliant philosopher and mathematician (among other things.) You may have heard the saying Cogito ergo sum - I think therefore I am. This comes from Descartes, but how did he arrive at this insight?

He did so in his investigations into what is now a well established branch of philosophy known as Epistemology.

Epistemology is the study of how we can know anything. Descartes began his study asking exactly that question - 'How can I know anything?' He asked himself, 'What if everything I think I perceive, or everything I think I know is actually the result of a demon deceiving me into believing that I perceive/know this?' Note that this applies to any and all conclusions drawn from methodological naturalism, i.e. Empiricism or the scientific method.

So, now, ask yourself that question. How do you know you're really reading what I've written. IF demons actually do exist (how do you KNOW they do not - an epistemological issue), how do you now an evil demon is not now deceiving you into believing you're actually reading this?

[Descartes's 'demon' was a device, he never suggested that demons actually exist. Please tell me you're not attempting to suggest that demons actually exist and that it falls to the reader to disprove said assertion. Notwithstanding the demon issue, attempting to to shift the burden of proof by positioning it as an epistemological issue is facile. Surely you can do better than that? Just to reiterate: the burden of proof rests with the claimant - even if that claimant attempts to shift it to the reader as you have.]

How do you know you have a body? How do you know you can trust any of your senses? How do you even know you have senses? Could not a very powerful evil demon deceive you into thinking you do?

So Descartes proceeded to doubt everything given that a demon could be deceiving him. Then he hit on something he could not doubt. He realized he could not doubt he was doubting. Because if he doubted that he was, in fact, doubting, what was he doing? He was doubting.

Aha! So Descartes reasoned that he could not doubt that he was doubting. And if he was doubting, he had to be thinking and if he was thinking, he must have a mind. And from there he reasoned that if he had a mind, he must exist. Cogito ergo sum - I think, therefore I am.

Another way to look at this is to ask if a demon can deceive me into thinking that I'm thinking. No, because if he deceives me into thinking that I'm thinking then I must, in fact, be thinking. In both these cases, he reasoned 'If I'm thinking, then I must have a mind.' Now, this is where the critical Dualist conclusion begins. Borrowing from both Leibnitz and Descartes:

• A demon may be able to convince me I have a body/brain when I don't BUT
• A demon cannot convince me that I have a mind when I don't.
• So, I can say something about my mind - I know it exists, that I cannot say about my body/brain; therefore, my mind and my brain/body cannot be identical. My brain is different from mind.

[You do realize that Descartes made no suggestion that his demon, nor demons in general existed. Right? So I'm hoping that you're not viewing Descarte's demon with one of your biblical demons. Is this the case?]
[is this where you wanted to go with Leibnitz? That the fireplace I see might not be the fireplace I think I see? ]
[What how does Cartesian Dualism reconcile schizophrenia and other neurochemical and neurological disease states? Is the mind whole inside the diseased brain? Or, is it also in a diseased state? Is the patient aware of their state of mind? For how long? Is there a point at which the disease state eclipses the mind and only autonomic functions remain? Where is the mind at this point? Your position claims that the mind is whole and unaffected, do you have proof for your claims? Are there authors in your library that discuss disease state and its impact on mental state (mind)? ]

The reason Substance Dualism is rejected by the #Atheist is due to an unyielding, desperate bias towards materialism. Many simply reject, a priori the existence of any immaterial, incorporeal realm. But the fact is, Substance Dualism has as much evidence as reductionist or non-reductionist materialism.

[You haven't proved that living in the material world is a substantively negative state. How is desperate or biased when it's the only point of reference we can reliably access and share with others as confirmation?]
[You argue for the existence of an immaterial world - the incorporeal - how is this not both an argument from ignorance that involves special pleading and personal incredulity?]
[You assert that substance dualism "has as much evidence as reductionist or non-reductionist materialism." but where have you provided this body of evidence?]

[atheism rejects the existence of the non-corporeal on the simple lack of proof; without evidence, there is no reason to believe in that which cannot be experienced and thus, assertions made without evidence can be dismissed (and must be) without evidence (Hitchens). This position requiring the theist, or any party making an assertion to honour the burden of proof includes all gods (yours and the rest), devils, demons, ghosts etc. Simply put: the burden of proof is yours and no amount of sophistry and ontological wriggling will get you off that hook.]

There is NO work to prove reductionist physicality nor is there any proof of non-reductive materialism with its supervenient properties. Thus, in response to the question 'What is Mind?', while the #Atheist may prefer to reply, 'It is matter.' he really has no evidence whatsoever for this claim. Once again all he has is his commitment to 'matter over mind' and an unshakeable #BlindFaith.

[sophistry. Where is your proof - independently verifiable evidence of your assertions? What evidence do you have that the mind exists independently of the brain or what happens to the mind after the cessation of life?] 

International guideline development for the determination of death
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00134-014-3242-7

Electroencephalographic activity after brain death
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamaneurology/article-abstract/586814

Are the patients who become organ donors under the Pittsburgh protocol for" non-heart-beating donors" really dead?
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/245681/summary

[And yet, the theist position is that one must simply exercise blind belief in non-corporeal, omnipresent (etc) entity - without question. How is this not blind faith? You've proved nothing in the course of this paper. While you managed to touch on some topics of interest concerning the mind/brain, consciousness and manifestation of self, you ventured off into metaphysics and in the end inject 'god' and demons back in where there's no way to know and no evidence for their existence; such as the state of mind in a person with a brain injury or a dementia patient. All you've managed to do here is repackage the old 'god of the gaps' argument in a new wrapper. ]