Gertie wrote: ↑June 16th, 2022, 11:54 am
Pattern-chaser wrote: ↑June 16th, 2022, 10:44 am
Gertie wrote: ↑June 16th, 2022, 10:02 am
Pattern-chaser wrote: ↑June 16th, 2022, 9:21 am
I wasn't. The reference to conclusions was attached to the potential course of action I described. I'm just trying to ask "
if we divide mind and body, and consider them quite separately, as independent elements, is this valid?" In other words, if we do as I have described, dividing mind and body (instead of considering them together, as indivisible parts of a single whole), then would the conclusions we reached be valid?
And my own answer to that is, of course, "no".
I'd say it's valid in some ways, because they have different properties. But they're not independant, because we've observed neural correlation seems to hold. There's a mind-body relationship of some sort which means affecting one affects the other. We know that much.
But the nature of that relationship, what underlies the correlation, is a mystery. If you're a physicalist monist for example and believe experience is ontologically reducible to physical brain processes, then it's indivisible in that it's all fundamentally aspects of the same substance. Like ice and water are states of H2O molecules. But that's one hypothesis amongst many. If you're a substance dualist or panpsychist you might have a different answer. But nobody knows.
If I understand you correctly, you seem to be saying that there are, or could be, circumstances where considering the mind (or the body) as an independent, er, element, might give rise to correct and useful ("valid") conclusions. Is that right?
Yes.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/dualism/#VarDuaOnt
The arguments I am using here are, in general, those that might be used to oppose a dualistic approach. Although 'common sense' might indicate that a holistic approach is the only guaranteed-sound approach to investigating the world, I wonder if there is anything more concrete than this? Do we, for example, know whether dualism has provided useful, or misleading, insights? Has the work been done to quantify the success of a holistic approach, or to directly compare holism with reductionist dualism?
We could really do with some more information, to enhance the somewhat-approximate 'common sense' approach.
There's a fair amount of nutty stuff on the interweb, unsurprisingly.
This is the only vaguely-rational piece I could find.