Why Dualism is really cool (As a rejection to determinism)

[Oxus_Scythian]

Many people on this forum have been discussing Determinism, or the problem of free will. If, like me, you seem to have settled on the inevitable conclusion that we don't have any sort of free will (Hard Determinism), fear not for there may yet be a better solution.

Descartes proposed Dualism, and the idea is that the physical mind and the physical body are something entirely different from the conscious mind. This idea has been further revised in light of new scientific discoveries, and the most modern interpretation is that the physical world can affect the body, which can effect the mind, and thus effects your consciousness. The rationale behind hard determinism is that:
-we can trace the evolution of our brains, and we know all of the different particles that make up our brains
-we know that our bodies consist of the same basic stuff as other much simpler organisms like bacteria or rats (who probably don't have free will)
-we know that our bodies are made of the same basic particles as the rest of the universe
-everything that exists in our bodies including our free will can be explained by natural and physical phenomena (the mechanistic model of the universe)
So hard determinism (and determinism in general) asks: "Considering all these things there is no logical explanation for our controlling of any of these things"

But Dualism begs to differ. The dualism philosophy treats your physical brain kind of like a PC, where you could replicate the exact physical structure of the PC, but no matter how hard you try that PC will never run Windows (your conscious mind being Windows in this scenario). This is a really useful philosophy for explaining a couple things:

1. We know the exact physical makeup of our bodies, including neuron pathways and pain receptors (etc.), but we still have no explanation for why we fell pain (or anything for that matter).
2. Even considering and knowing the above information about determinism, people generally still feel like they have some sort of free will.

This is compatible with things like soft determinism, but not necessarily with Libertarian free will. Dualism also implies that the mechanistic model of the universe is flawed, and that there are some concepts in the universe and about our mind that cannot be explained by just physical phenomena, something that led to it being largely rejected; this concept doesn't really provide any properties that can be explained by science. This criticism is usually defended by the fact that our brain is really complicated, and that while modern science has advanced a lot, we are still nowhere near understanding our brains. It's an accepted rule in psychology (at least right now); theorizing about mental states can never yield any knowledge about individual neurons or regions of the brain, and studying individual neurons and regions of the brain can't yield much information about mental states (like consciousness). Also, philosophies and systems of reasoning that may work for the outside world are notoriously bad a explaining what goes on in our own heads (such as the mechanistic model of the universe).

I personally don't really buy into Dualism and am myself a Hard Determinist currently, but I won't list any further reasons for this here because I know a great many people struggle with finding a better solution to the problem of free will (and I can see why).

I'm eager to know what you guys think about this subject, and whether or not you have any further arguments supporting Dualism that I haven't thought of.

[Tamminen]

Even considering and knowing the above information about determinism, people generally still feel like they have some sort of free will.

If I eat an apple instead of not eating an apple, I make a decision. If I eat an apple, the material world is different compared to the case I do not eat an apple. But what is the difference between my decision being free or not free? What does 'free' mean? I decide, is that not enough? Is something not happening according to laws of nature? Does my decision have something that has not a counterpart in the material world? If my decision is free, whatever it means, also the material world is free, because, in my opinion, consciousness and its material counterpart are the same thing seen from two ontological levels.

But really, what does 'freedom of the will' mean? Has the expression a real function or use in our language, to remind of later Wittgenstein?

[Supine]

My understanding is that the brain and mind are different concepts. The brain is physical and measurable whereas the mind is not.

The paradigm in modern science has been from the philosophical position that materialism precedes the mind, idea, logic, order, Logos.

Plato and Christianity subscribed to the philosophical position that mind, idea, logic, order, Logos existed before the material and brought forth the material world (i.e., all chemicals on the periodic tables, our bodies and brains).

Christianity took that concept and word Logos from the ancient pagan Greeks. The book of John in its opening refers to Jesus as the Logos. And Logos meaning: word, reason, idea, order, logic, mind.



The Simulation hypothesis if it ever gained sufficient evidence to become accepted as a scientific theory, would alter our scientific paradigm on its head. Furthermore, the hypothesis suggests humans can tap into the universe through their consciences minds and alter their own reality future (e.g., "prayer").

Atheists that subscribe to this hypothesis, via with determination not to falsify their "no God" dogma, they prefer to ad hoc hypothesize it is actually us humans in the future that have created this simulated world and our own characters.

[Oxus_Scythian]

Even considering and knowing the above information about determinism, people generally still feel like they have some sort of free will.

If I eat an apple instead of not eating an apple, I make a decision. If I eat an apple, the material world is different compared to the case I do not eat an apple. But what is the difference between my decision being free or not free? What does 'free' mean? I decide, is that not enough? Is something not happening according to laws of nature? Does my decision have something that has not a counterpart in the material world? If my decision is free, whatever it means, also the material world is free, because, in my opinion, consciousness and its material counterpart are the same thing seen from two ontological levels.

But really, what does 'freedom of the will' mean? Has the expression a real function or use in our language, to remind of later Wittgenstein?

You bring up a good point, albeit the concept of determinism has far greater implications past deciding to eat apples or not, which gets into illusionism (unfortunately since I am a new user I can't put a link to the page that discusses this). The classic example is in a criminal justice case in which the defendant commits a heinous crime. The use of determinism is not just that he made that action, but in seeing the causes behind it (mental illness, an abusive childhood, etc). Saying that the line to draw in people's choices is just that they made them is both inaccurate from a scientific and statistical standpoint (I can elaborate if need be on this), and from a more political view is one of the biggest problems with our criminal justice system today and its overuse of retribution (again, I can elaborate). So I don't think you can say that you just "chose" to eat that apple, because something greater than yourself ultimately caused you to do it, which I think is what you were trying to get at by saying the material world was to be free for your choices to be free. I completely agree that 'consciousness' and the material world are the same thing as seen from two different ontological levels, but only if you are also asserting that the material world is not 'free' (overusing quotation marks, I know).

As for your last question, I think I agree with you...? If you are referring to Wittgenstein's whole dealio with the philosophy of language and how a lot of philosophical discussion just becomes meaningless wordplay, then I completely agree with you, and I'm obligated to validate your opinion that "free-will" is a meaningless term to argue over because it doesn't have real-world landmark (another Wittgenstein idea), because at a fundamental level free will doesn't truly exist. If you end up seeing this I'd appreciate a little elaboration on what exactly you meant by mentioning Wittgenstein, if only to further discussion and to make sure I'm understanding what you're trying to get at

[Oxus_Scythian]

My understanding is that the brain and mind are different concepts. The brain is physical and measurable whereas the mind is not.

The paradigm in modern science has been from the philosophical position that materialism precedes the mind, idea, logic, order, Logos.

Plato and Christianity subscribed to the philosophical position that mind, idea, logic, order, Logos existed before the material and brought forth the material world (i.e., all chemicals on the periodic tables, our bodies and brains).

Christianity took that concept and word Logos from the ancient pagan Greeks. The book of John in its opening refers to Jesus as the Logos. And Logos meaning: word, reason, idea, order, logic, mind.



The Simulation hypothesis if it ever gained sufficient evidence to become accepted as a scientific theory, would alter our scientific paradigm on its head. Furthermore, the hypothesis suggests humans can tap into the universe through their consciences minds and alter their own reality future (e.g., "prayer").

Atheists that subscribe to this hypothesis, via with determination not to falsify their "no God" dogma, they prefer to ad hoc hypothesize it is actually us humans in the future that have created this simulated world and our own characters.

I hate using words like "greater mind" and "the universe at large" because they make me cringe but stick with me.

Also a huge theorizer on this subject is that Tesla guy who lands rockets in the ocean. All your points seem correct, though I'm not particularly an expert on Christianity. I'm kind of confused on how this argument relates to free will and Dualism... Whether or not a God made the universe or whether or not we are living in a simulation seems completely irrelevant. We can never know with absolute certainty whether or not we are living in a simulation, and even if we are that doesn't really change anything. If some greater mind created our universe, the universe would still proceed our existence as humans, so the whole Logos argument that is a fundamental axiom for almost all of philosophy would remain unchanged. I know I'm basically arguing that "nobody cares," but really knowing this wouldn't change anything about science or philosophy, and by all conventional definitions we can't really "know" something like that.

[Sy Borg]

The criminal justice system need pay little attention to free will, only factors behind the offending with a view to protecting the public. Whether a person is a danger due to a bad childhood or not matters less than whether the person still presents a threat to the public, precedents and how much deterrence the crime warrants.

Many disregard or accept dualism as a matter of course, but I agree with the OP that it's interesting and speculative subject matter. It's also worth considering what I think of as 'apparent dualism', where unknown informational phenomena appear to be only partially related to their material substrates, perhaps only because the causal links aren't understood. Perhaps.

As a result, just as the legal system defers to practicalities, so can the idea of dualism, eg. when a person prays for guidance, if they reliably gain what they asked for then it would seem moot whether the result was due to the placebo effect, mental dynamics or if they has actually opened themselves up to a dual mind (Logos, as described above). It's when the results of prayer (or whatever) are inconsistent or poor that we might start to question and investigate, to understand what's going on and perhaps tweak our methods for greater reliability.

[Tamminen]

If you end up seeing this I'd appreciate a little elaboration on what exactly you meant by mentioning Wittgenstein, if only to further discussion and to make sure I'm understanding what you're trying to get at

In fact I have not much to add to what I said. Ontologically we should speak about acts, for practical purposes we can speak about free or not free acts depending on circumstances that effect our acts, e.g. intentional and unintentional acts etc. There are, however, philosophers like Sartre who think that freedom is an ontological concept, because there is no causal connection between our acts, just "nothingness", as he says. Man is for him "a hole in the universe". But I do not buy that.

[Togo1]

There's a interesting informational justification for dualism. Take words that describe the mind and mental processes, like consciousness, thought etc. And then try and find entirely physical means to explain them. When you look at those physical processes, the words used to describe them don't convey the same information as the original. There is an inevitable shift in meaning. Saying "I think about apples" contains different information to "there exists excitement in the olfactory circuits linked to the patterns associated with experience of apples". So by insisting on one explanation in place of the other, some of the original information is being lost, a process known as reduction.

So when you get to:

-everything that exists in our bodies including our free will can be explained by natural and physical phenomena (the mechanistic model of the universe)
So hard determinism (and determinism in general) asks: "Considering all these things there is no logical explanation for our controlling of any of these things"

This bit doesn't really work. If you're a monist (i.e. not a dualist) the everything 'is natural and physical phenomena' by definition, so saying it's natural and physical can't tell you anything about it's nature, even if it feels like it should. Instead you have to make a choice to decide to reduce the situation to the merely physical, reducing the information being conveyed. To adopt a specifically mechanistic (i.e. reductionistic) view of the world. But if you're a hard determinist, what possible reason can you have for making that choice? It's not merely a preference of expression, the amount of information being conveyed is less.

To put it more harshly, the kind of monism that is used to support hard determinism can only be sustained through a process of ignoring evidence, and disregarding information. It's an inherently anti-scientific position. A scienctific approach thus requires dualism.

-- Updated May 10th, 2017, 6:31 am to add the following --

But really, what does 'freedom of the will' mean? Has the expression a real function or use in our language, to remind of later Wittgenstein?

Yes.

The problem is that will can free from different things. The two most popular forms of free will are compatibalist free will, and incompatibalist free will.

Compatibalist free will is typically used in discusions about morality and moral choices, which describes freedom from coercion. If I have a gun to my head, are the choices that I make morally mine? The discussion is usually around to what degree we have free will.

Incompatibalist free will is typically used in discussions of the nature of the universe, and refers to freedom from determination, in the context of determinism. If the world typically proceeds on a determined path does that determinism extend to my choices? The choice here is usually more digital, in that either choices are determined, or they are not.

[Supine]

My understanding is that the brain and mind are different concepts. The brain is physical and measurable whereas the mind is not.

The paradigm in modern science has been from the philosophical position that materialism precedes the mind, idea, logic, order, Logos.

Plato and Christianity subscribed to the philosophical position that mind, idea, logic, order, Logos existed before the material and brought forth the material world (i.e., all chemicals on the periodic tables, our bodies and brains).

Christianity took that concept and word Logos from the ancient pagan Greeks. The book of John in its opening refers to Jesus as the Logos. And Logos meaning: word, reason, idea, order, logic, mind.



The Simulation hypothesis if it ever gained sufficient evidence to become accepted as a scientific theory, would alter our scientific paradigm on its head. Furthermore, the hypothesis suggests humans can tap into the universe through their consciences minds and alter their own reality future (e.g., "prayer").

Atheists that subscribe to this hypothesis, via with determination not to falsify their "no God" dogma, they prefer to ad hoc hypothesize it is actually us humans in the future that have created this simulated world and our own characters.

I hate using words like "greater mind" and "the universe at large" because they make me cringe but stick with me.

Also a huge theorizer on this subject is that Tesla guy who lands rockets in the ocean. All your points seem correct, though I'm not particularly an expert on Christianity. I'm kind of confused on how this argument relates to free will and Dualism... Whether or not a God made the universe or whether or not we are living in a simulation seems completely irrelevant. We can never know with absolute certainty whether or not we are living in a simulation, and even if we are that doesn't really change anything. If some greater mind created our universe, the universe would still proceed our existence as humans, so the whole Logos argument that is a fundamental axiom for almost all of philosophy would remain unchanged. I know I'm basically arguing that "nobody cares," but really knowing this wouldn't change anything about science or philosophy, and by all conventional definitions we can't really "know" something like that.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding your positions, but I was saying that in contrast to determinism (in which material things, earth, universe, brains, toes, stars etc. must exist before mind, ideas, and reason or imagination) some ancient Greek philosophers like Plato argued that mind, idea, reason and so forth existed before the material world and essentially the material world came forth from them.

How free will enters this is the issue of man's choice to say... pray which can alter his future or his character traits itself. And the Simulation Hypothesize does not contradict this whereas determinism does.

There are online videos pointing out that the Simulation Hypothesize draws from the philosophical position of Plato that I stated.



But here are some videos on ancient pagan Greek philosophical views on Logos.

-- Updated May 10th, 2017, 7:16 am to add the following --

Longer videos. But they touch on how Plato address the issue of "evil." Which might explain why Catholicism regards "sin" as "a lesser good." At any rate, evil, sin, murder, lies, theft touch on issues of free will.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCEoJvNYQIo&t=113s


Philosophy of Plato (Part 1: Idealism)


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBPxPAHi3lA&t=2199s

Philosophy of Plato (Part 2: Allegory of the Cave)

[Oxus_Scythian]

It's also worth considering what I think of as 'apparent dualism', where unknown informational phenomena appear to be only partially related to their material substrates, perhaps only because the causal links aren't understood.

The thread that just got created called the many faces of the free will problem talks about this, in the essay that the person wrote included with their post. I'd reckon it's a fair assessment to make that we don't know all that goes on with consciousness and the like or the causation behind it, even though it seems to be tied only to what goes on inside our brains.

I don't disagree that dangerous members of society need to to be locked away for the common good, but a wide adoption of a determinist philosophy might lead to more... compassion? There's a line to draw between locking away dangerous criminals and sending people to a Supermax for 15 years on petty drug charges, and we've definitely crossed that line. I believe in putting more efforts into rehabilitation and setting people up to succeed is all.

[Oxus_Scythian]

There's a interesting informational justification for dualism. Take words that describe the mind and mental processes, like consciousness, thought etc. And then try and find entirely physical means to explain them. When you look at those physical processes, the words used to describe them don't convey the same information as the original. There is an inevitable shift in meaning. Saying "I think about apples" contains different information to "there exists excitement in the olfactory circuits linked to the patterns associated with experience of apples". So by insisting on one explanation in place of the other, some of the original information is being lost, a process known as reduction.

This is a rather dogmatic argument. Reducing a simple statement that clearly expresses what you meant to painfully specific terms that do indeed convey less information has nothing to do with the fact that your thinking about apples was ultimately caused by something. My position as a Hard Determinist simply means that I recognize the much more complex systems behind simple generalizations like thinking about apples, or your ultimate choice to do so. Of course

Saying "I think about apples" contains different information to "there exists excitement in the olfactory circuits linked to the patterns associated with experience of apples"

because the latter statement does not even come close to describing all of what goes on when you simply "think about apples" and it never will because it would take literally forever and it's also futile, but that doesn't mean we can't show scientifically that everything going on inside your brain is a more basic physical phenomena. Statement like "I think about apples" simple generalize all of these little things that would be EXTREMELY tedious to describe into a nice little linguistic package that gets the meaning across.

I'm also fairly sure that Monism is the generally accepted scientific view...? Most modern philosophers and "scientists" in general adopt some form of determinism. As I already said to say that dualism is scientifically accurate would be to say that something else non-physically measurable (at least right now) is happening that gives us our consciousness, which by the nature of it's non-provability is rather unscientific. Reductionism and mechanism are closely related, but none of them extend to how I would seemingly 'reduce' my arguments when talking about simple stuff because of my position as a hard determinist.

[Sy Borg]

It's also worth considering what I think of as 'apparent dualism', where unknown informational phenomena appear to be only partially related to their material substrates, perhaps only because the causal links aren't understood.

The thread that just got created called the many faces of the free will problem talks about this, in the essay that the person wrote included with their post. I'd reckon it's a fair assessment to make that we don't know all that goes on with consciousness and the like or the causation behind it, even though it seems to be tied only to what goes on inside our brains.

Yes, it relates to the fundamental question - what came first, mind or matter? Is mind emerging in matter or is matter being more capable of expressing how the universe is?

I don't disagree that dangerous members of society need to to be locked away for the common good, but a wide adoption of a determinist philosophy might lead to more... compassion? There's a line to draw between locking away dangerous criminals and sending people to a Supermax for 15 years on petty drug charges, and we've definitely crossed that line. I believe in putting more efforts into rehabilitation and setting people up to succeed is all.

No doubt you'd agree that, in applying compassion, we need to think beyond the immediate stakeholders - prisoners, their victims and all of their SOs - to also include any potential victims should a prisoner be given early release, or to be given a bond instead. The way I see it, in any given population there will be people on the fringes and the distributions can be plotted on a Bell curve. That will include impulse control. There must logically be a minority of people who will simple be unable to control their impulses to a safe level in public.

I agree re: drug users, though. My impression is that drug laws are now largely supported and sponsored by powerful wealthy lobbies for clubs, pubs and alcohol. I keep wondering how long the powers-that-be can continue pretending that alcohol consumption and sale is any different to the sale and use of cocaine, speed, MDMA and weed. The deliberate blindness and denial of the self righteous about their own addictions to hard drugs (alcohol) would be amusing if not for the many harms of prohibition.

[Togo1]

... So by insisting on one explanation in place of the other, some of the original information is being lost, a process known as reduction.

This is a rather dogmatic argument.

It's certainly a very technical argument, yes, but I thought it might appeal to the OP.

Reducing a simple statement that clearly expresses what you meant to painfully specific terms that do indeed convey less information has nothing to do with the fact that your thinking about apples was ultimately caused by something.

No, but then it's an argument against Monism, not an argument against Determinism. What it means is that in reducing statements to purely physical interactions, information tends to be lost. This means that purely physical interactions as given are not sufficient as a replacement for the original statements. To put it another way, Monism depends on ignoring data.

My position as a Hard Determinist simply means that I recognize the much more complex systems behind simple generalizations like thinking about apples, or your ultimate choice to do so.

If we take that statement literally, you're not a Hard Determinist. Plenty of positions recognise both causation and complex systems, including several forms of Dualism. The position of the Hard Determinist is that such systems interact in a highly specific way, such that every event is determined by prior events.

but that doesn't mean we can't show scientifically that everything going on inside your brain is a more basic physical phenomena. Statement like "I think about apples" simple generalize all of these little things that would be EXTREMELY tedious to describe into a nice little linguistic package that gets the meaning across.

No, statements like "I think about apples" generalises all sort of things that would be impossible to describe, because we can't show scientifically that one reduces to the other. We'd like to think so in principle, sure, but this has not been mapped, or even come close to being mapped.

Take a real example. Last year there was some facinating work on patients in a PVS (persistent vegitative state), asking them to think about playing tennis. They could tell, looking at a brain scanner, whether or not the patient was thinking about tennis, by the pattern of activation in the brain. But it's fracking hard to do (they choose tennis because as a physical activity the activation pattern is simpler), the whole brain is involved, and they're looking at about 35 different areas of unusually high activtiy that vary from patient to patient. In principle you could hope that the everything that is involved in thinking about tennis could be mapped onto neural circuitry, but we're nowhere near that yet, and certainly nowhere near stating with confidence exactly under what limits those interactions take place, which is the position of Hard Determinism. And even the idea that you could map in principle gets you into hot water, with problems such as the Hard Problem of consciousness.

I'm also fairly sure that Monism is the generally accepted scientific view...?

Not as far as I'm aware. Most scientists recognise that science, only dealing with emperical data, isn't really qualified to make epistomological judgements. There are plenty of mental models in medicine and neuroscience , that are seperate from physical models, as a matter of convenience. Monism versus dualism isn't really a scientific issue, or one that has much impact on science.

As I already said to say that dualism is scientifically accurate would be to say that something else non-physically measurable (at least right now) is happening that gives us our consciousness, which by the nature of it's non-provability is rather unscientific.

<shrug> To say Hard Determinism is scientifically accurate would be to say that all aspects of the universe operate entirely according to strict limitations. By the nature of its non-provabiltiy, it is rather unscientific.

Reductionism and mechanism are closely related, but none of them extend to how I would seemingly 'reduce' my arguments when talking about simple stuff because of my position as a hard determinist.

What do you see as the difference?

This was an interesting post, so my answers go in a lot of different directions. It's probably as well to choose only a few points to reply to in any detail, if any, or the length will get the better of us.

[Supine]

No doubt you'd agree that, in applying compassion, we need to think beyond the immediate stakeholders - prisoners, their victims and all of their SOs - to also include any potential victims should a prisoner be given early release, or to be given a bond instead. The way I see it, in any given population there will be people on the fringes and the distributions can be plotted on a Bell curve. That will include impulse control. There must logically be a minority of people who will simple be unable to control their impulses to a safe level in public.

I agree re: drug users, though. My impression is that drug laws are now largely supported and sponsored by powerful wealthy lobbies for clubs, pubs and alcohol. I keep wondering how long the powers-that-be can continue pretending that alcohol consumption and sale is any different to the sale and use of cocaine, speed, MDMA and weed. The deliberate blindness and denial of the self righteous about their own addictions to hard drugs (alcohol) would be amusing if not for the many harms of prohibition.

There is a lot of money in the production and sale of alcohol. Even night clubs and casinos financially benefit from their patrons consuming if not also purchasing the alcohol on site.

Over consumption is bad on so many different levels. And the bio-chemistry involved is pretty deterministic. That said, in terms of determinism, consumption of alcohol to an excessive and frequent degree is more severe on the brain of developing unborn children than is cocaine, heroin, and meth combined. According to the latest research.

This female doctor in the video might agree on some level with you.

(Really, everything is made up of chemicals whether it is steal, wood, water, apples, human teeth or blood, heroin or alcohol.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWtLAfw1Ses

Published on May 21, 2013

Retro Report: In the 1980s, many government officials, scientists and journalists warned that the country would be plagued by a generation of "crack babies." They were wrong.

Read the story here: http://nyti.ms/166g5dg

[Webplodder]

I ask myself why Descartes even considered a separation between 'mind' and 'body.'

In my view, he and many others realized there is an 'informational' quality to consciousness, i.e., a separation between the physical and the non-physical worlds. I liken this to the difference between a PC and the software running it. Without an operating system the PC can never process any information, despite it being composed of a vast amount of information. Where, however, does such information originate from?

Perhaps information itself is an embedded aspect of the universe that arises spontaneously at every level. Even a rock is an informational unit in terms of its atoms etc. being able to react to one another and, therefore, having a kind of awareness of itself. If you look deeply into the structure of matter it is full of informational organization, so it seems to me that we are the inheritors of a vast array of abstract information that has originated who knows where?