Substance Dualism: True or False ?

[Bugmaster]

Substance Dualism is the belief that, in addition to the material things we see every day -- chairs, rocks, molecules, atoms, radio waves, etc. -- there exist wholly immaterial entities. Some people call them "souls", some people call them "spirits", or "minds", but the basic idea is the same; I'll call the immaterial things "souls" from now on. These immaterial things are, by definition, undetectable by any material means -- they cannot be seen, heard, or measured with any scientific instrument.

According to most religions, a human being consists of a material body, as well as an immaterial soul. The soul is what defines your identity, your sense of self. Some religions believe that souls are eternal; some believe that souls are merely parts of the cosmic consciousness, but the bottom line is, humans have souls. Deities, such as the Christian God, or the Hindu Kali, or the various animistic spirits, can be described as disembodied souls.

As I see it, Dualism is the cornerstone of most religious belief (Scientology and Raelianism being possible exceptions). However, Dualism has a major weakness:

How does your immaterial soul cause your material body to move, to act, to type things, etc. ? Since the soul is completely non-physical, how is it able to interact with the physical world ? And, even if we assume that such interaction is possible, how come we still can't detect it with our material instruments ?

I've never seen a thouroughly convincing defence of Dualism, but I'd love to see one. So... any takers ?

[Bugmaster]

The reason for the dualism? The answer to the question, while disarmingly simple, is difficult to 'realize'. The dualism exists in order for us to make sense of the phenomenal world.

I am not sure what this means. Is dualism true or false ? I understand that there may be sociological or psychological reasons for why the notion of dualism exists, but that's irrelevant. I'm not asking, "why do people support dualism ?", I'm asking "is dualism true ?" I believe that the answer is "no", and I've stated my reasons for it... Your turn :-)

[ST88]

I think you're begging the question. Here's what we have so far, in shorthand

Before we get into the actual question, I'm only "begging the question" if you accept that there is a soul that has properties you can describe. So far we have only one property that can be described, and that is a metaphysical nature, which can't be described.

First of all, your reply is self-contradictory, because it describes a mechanism which is allegedly impossible to describe. Second of all, your reply does not resolve the original contradiction in any way. How can non-physical souls affect physical entities ? And if they can somehow affect physical entities, why doesn't this render them susceptible to detection ?

A) If you accept the proposition that there is a soul, you have opened the floodgates as to what else in the invisible realm is possible. I don't have to state a mechanism for soul-control because I am not required to give a description of how a soul behaves, let alone how it interacts with other realms.
B) You state my reply is self-contradictory. I don't see it that way. My response to your question is perfectly rational in that it describes an irrational solution to an irrational problem.
C) Your question How can non-physical entities affect physical entities? strikes me as the fallacy of failure of creativity, or something like that. You seem to be trying to say that you can't conceive of such a process, therefore it can't exist. While perfectly reasonable in a materialist three-dimensional world, this view becomes unreasonable once you accept a metaphysical realm beyond this materialist world. I.e., to talk about souls, you must pretend that souls exist and that they have their own logic on their own terms. You can't expect that a soul would behave as if it were a part of your otherwise materialist realm.

Secondly, a mechanism which is "impossible to describe" is no mechanism at all. "F=ma" is a mechanism; "things happen" is not. An impossible-to-describe mechanism has no explanatory power.

You're asking for a specific mechanism by which an entity of unknown properties affects an entity of known properties. If we don't know the properties of A, then the statement A affects B is essentially unverifiable. Not only that, the exact mechanism of the effect is also unverifiable and therefore must remain unknown -- even if the effect is observed in B.

[Curious]

How can a completely non-physical entity, such as the mind (or the soul, if you prefer) control a physical body ? This is not a scientific question, but a philosophical one; you don't need to provide detailed formulas, but you do need to provide some sort of a logical proof. How can an immaterial entity interact with the material world in any way ? To me, this sounds like a contradiction, so it's up to you to resolve it.

Would you describe a vacuum as a material or immaterial "entity"? It is certainly not a material entity and might not be accurately described as an entity at all but we know that it does affect material. If I was to release a gas into a vacuum the gas would disperse because of the inertia (or propensity towards movement) of the molecules (or atoms) of the gas. The gas would then be less prone to material interaction than before, having less chance to collide with material particles. How would we then measure this vacuum after the release of the gas into it? We would only be able to measure the material within it or measure the passage of material through it and deduce that there was little or no measurable material there and so label it a partial or complete vacuum. The vacuum itself defies direct measurement and yet still affects the course of the material within it. Might not spirit, rather than making people behave more spiritually, make people behave less materially?

[bernee51]

Your turn

Gee thanks

The reason for the dualism? The answer to the question, while disarmingly simple, is difficult to 'realize'. The dualism exists in order for us to make sense of the phenomenal world.

I am not sure what this means. Is dualism true or false ? I understand that there may be sociological or psychological reasons for why the notion of dualism exists, but that's irrelevant. I'm not asking, "why do people support dualism ?", I'm asking "is dualism true ?" I believe that the answer is "no", and I've stated my reasons for it...

Perhaps I didn't make myself clear...dualism exists but it is not 'true'. It is a construct.

[Bugmaster]

Before we get into the actual question, I'm only "begging the question" if you accept that there is a soul that has properties you can describe.

I thought I did describe such properties, in my original post. The soul is immaterial, undetectable by physical methods, yet somehow interacts with our bodies (at the very least). Personally, I think these properties are contradictory, yet they do not defy description, by any means.

A) If you accept the proposition that there is a soul, you have opened the floodgates as to what else in the invisible realm is possible.

True !

I don't have to state a mechanism for soul-control because I am not required to give a description of how a soul behaves, let alone how it interacts with other realms.

You're not required to do anything, of course, but without such a mechanism, the soul remains a self-contradictory concept, and therefore you'd be forced to admit that souls can not exist (just as square circles can not exist), and therefore dualism is false.

You state my reply is self-contradictory. I don't see it that way. My response to your question is perfectly rational in that it describes an irrational solution to an irrational problem.

If you are saying that dualism is self-contradictory, then there's no need to argue, because we're in agreement. As I said, I started the thread to see a defence of dualism, I can supply the refutation by myself :-)

I.e., to talk about souls, you must pretend that souls exist and that they have their own logic on their own terms. You can't expect that a soul would behave as if it were a part of your otherwise materialist realm.

I'm not sure what this means. Are you saying that souls cannot be discussed rationally at all ? If so, then souls do indeed defy description... But this would make dualism an empty concept, since ascribing any kind of properties or behaviors (such as, "they make our bodies move") to souls completely impossible.

Nonetheless, I think I have provided some concrete properties of souls, for the purposes of this debate. I'm not saying that I believe these souls actually exist, of course; I'm merely establishing the cornerstone of dualism so that I can knock it down.

[Bugmaster]

Would you describe a vacuum as a material or immaterial "entity"?

Material. Einstein made a big headway into describing space in purely material terms (it's affected by mass, for one thing); other concepts in modern physics are building upon his work.

The vacuum itself defies direct measurement and yet still affects the course of the material within it.

This is not true. Vacuum is nothing but empty space, and space does not defy measurement by any means.

I'll refer you to Wikipedia for more info:

Einstein's theory of relativity consists of special relativity and general relativity, which are built on the principle of relativity and the local constancy of the speed of light. In these theories space and time became unified as spacetime. In general relativity, the concept that this spacetime could be curved was introduced. This curved spacetime replaced Newton's force of gravity and the source of gravitation.

[QED]

Sorry... which kind of soul do you mean ? Do you mean, "certain objects, such as cars, seem to affect people in a strong way", or do you mean, "there exists a bona fide, non-physical entity, that has an existence independent of the observer" ? See below for my explanation of the metaphoric "soul".

What I have been trying to do here is show how the concept of soul is a compelling one. I've been stressing this to satisfy certain people who cannot understand how anyone could deny the existence of soul. But I think this has led you to mistake my position. An existence independent of the observer is still a tricky thing to deny which is why I prefer to say that the immaterial cannot influence anything else that is immaterial, i.e. it always requires mediation by the material (in the form of mind -- which is a broad term for any data processor). Thus it is restricted to being an abstraction. So no hocus-pocus

That, together with the fact that no physical determination is possible for any other type of soul leads to only one reasonable conclusion...

I don't understand what you mean by "physical determination"

We can't bottle it.

How would we miss some biological structure with the properties of soul afforded by pop culture? Particularly when it's mode of operation is beyond all current sicentific probing. It's like someone proposing that each of us has something more sophisticated than RADAR but with no obvious biological components to implement it. I think such a person could reasonably be labelled a crank.

I'm not sure what you're getting at here. It seems to me that you're saying something similar to the following (warning: all of the below might be a big strawman, since I'm not entirely certain what you're saying):

1). Certain cultural icons, such as car brands, affect people strongly; most people are affected in the same way by the same icon.
2). The reasons for this are either materialistic, or dualistic.
3). There's no scientific explanation for this phenomenon
4). Therefore, the dualistic explanation is true.

By now I hope you appreciate that I feel soul is obviously an abstract concept held within the mind of an observer.

[Curious]

Would you describe a vacuum as a material or immaterial "entity"?

Material. Einstein made a big headway into describing space in purely material terms (it's affected by mass, for one thing); other concepts in modern physics are building upon his work.

I see your point but is it space that is affected by mass or simply the particles within the space. If space was simply curved, in for example the simplistic example of a membrane with a weight in the middle, then a stationary object should shift position slightly but should not accelerate unrestrained towards the centre of gravity. The movement should be compared to the movement of a painted dot on the membrane and not of a marble placed upon the membrane.

This is not true. Vacuum is nothing but empty space, and space does not defy measurement by any means.

I am not saying we cannot measure space, I am saying we cannot measure whether it is a vacuum without measuring it's contents. If there are no measurable contents we say it is a vacuum but we do not measure the vacuum itself, we measure the material within it. To simply measure the space would not tell us whether or not it was a vacuum.

Einstein's theory of relativity consists of special relativity and general relativity, which are built on the principle of relativity and the local constancy of the speed of light. In these theories space and time became unified as spacetime. In general relativity, the concept that this spacetime could be curved was introduced. This curved spacetime replaced Newton's force of gravity and the source of gravitation.

And simple curved space leads to the acceleration of a stationary object towards the gravitational centre of another object how exactly? Simple curvature doesn't do it, it would require spatial attraction or "suction" to accomplish this. I think it likely though that particle/wave interaction is a more likely mechanism.

[Bugmaster]

By now I hope you appreciate that I feel soul is obviously an abstract concept held within the mind of an observer.

Aw... it seems like we both agree that substance dualism is false. And here I was, hoping that you would try to defend it :-)

[Bugmaster]

I see your point but is it space that is affected by mass or simply the particles within the space.

No, it's really the space itself. Weird, but true... you can read a simple explanation of it here (random google search result).

If space was simply curved, in for example the simplistic example of a membrane with a weight in the middle, then a stationary object should shift position slightly but should not accelerate unrestrained towards the centre of gravity.

It would, actually, unless the friction was very high.

You can read more about general relativity here.

Anyway, we're getting off-topic here. We can debate special and general relativity all we want, but I think we both agree that space (regardless of how it's curving) is, in fact, material.