My argument against Cartesian dualism is formally valid. The conclusion is derived from premises. — quine

But, as others have said, the second premise is false. Just because physics has no way of determining how the spatial-temporal and non-spatial-temporal interact, this does not mean that they do not interact.

He doesn't. But quine explicitly said in the opening post "I am going to offer an argument against Cartesian dualism". — Michael

Ah--I overlooked that he specifically mentioned Cartesian dualism in his initial post.

It's because they are located in entirely different areas. Bodies are located in space and time. Minds are not there. They never met each other. It's the result of dualistic scenarios. Fortunately, they can meet each other. Dualism is false.

Yes, minds clearly interact with bodies. You are assuming that immaterial causes cannot interact with physical causes, i.e. you are assuming your premise.

It's because they are located in entirely different areas. Bodies are located in space and time. Minds are not there. — quine

Until we determine exactly what it means to be in space and time, we cannot make any determinations about whether or not things which are not in space and time can influence things in space and time.

If we assume that all things are necessarily in space and time, then from that assumption it is impossible that anything is not in space and time. But if we assume that there are things which are not in space and time, we can still allow that these things are related to things which are in space and time. The relationship would be through the means of something other than space and time.

It's because they are located in entirely different areas. — quine

Well, supposedly, on this Cartesian view, nonphysical things are not located at all. So it's not true that a nonphysical thing is located in a different place than one's body. Of course, it's not true that a nonphysical thing is located in the same place as one's body, either.

It's not at all clear to me how there are supposed to be things that have no location (all of the typical examples that dualists forward are things that I believe have locations), or how things without a location interact with things that have a location, but that's the view.

Yes, minds clearly interact with bodies. You are assuming that immaterial causes cannot interact with physical causes, i.e. you are assuming your premise. — Chany

You mean like the brain is a mind-detector receiving instructions from outside space-time?

Mind-body identity theory is a better choice than dualism is. According to identity theory, mind and body occupy the same space-time point. In this view, the problem of mind-body interaction is automatically solved. They are both located in space and time.

Perhaps. The mind and body are clearly linked, that is for sure. The question is how. The OP presented an argument.

Again, the argument I intitially presented is a dualist parody arguing against physicalism. Both the OP's argument and the parody I presented rest on an increduility of the opposing position, pointing out that the other side has not shown and has not presented a way in which the mind works. For the dualist, the physicalist has physical matter somehow produce the mind and consciousness, the mechanics of which has not been illustrated. For the physicalist, the dualist has two different substances on different modes of existence interact, the mechanics of which have not been illustrated.

My point is that the arguments null each other out and that we should appeal to other arguments for and against dualism/physicalism, like Occam's razor.

Mind-body identity theory is a better choice than dualism is. According to identity theory, mind and body occupy the same space-time point. In this view, the problem of mind-body interaction is automatically solved. They are both located in space and time. — quine

The interaction problem is not the only problem. There are reasons why some people reject the claim that the mind is a physical thing, with dualism solving these problems.

So you can't simply say that identity theory is the better choice because it solves one problem.

And mind-body indentity theory has the hard problem of consciousness and the notion of how physical matter, in some forms, produces consciousness and minds while it does not in other forms.

(1) If dualism is true, then mind is not spatio-temporal, and body is spatio-temporal.
(2) If mind is not spatio-temporal, and body is spatio-temporal, then mind and body cannot interact.
(3) Mind and body can interact.
Therefore, (4) dualism is not true. — quine

Questions about the propositions:

1) What is the nature of mind in a spatio-temporal sense?

2) What is meant by a body is spatio-temporal?

3) What is spatio-temporal?

4) What does it mean to interact in a spatio-temporal?

5) Is current knowledge of the physical specified in terms of spatio-tempiral?

The most significant problem s that I found with the argument is that terms are not defined and therefore cannot be argued for our against. Without specificity and precision, it is impossible to understand the proper meaning of the statements.

'Spatio-temporal' means space and time where we are.
Bodies are spatio-temporal because they are extended in space-time points.
According to Cartesian dualism, minds are not extended in space-time points.

i would submit that space-time as you describe as it relates to the mind and/orbody is highly debately. Space-time is rather ambiguous concept arising out of the mathematics of certain gravitational theories and does not in any way create an ontological description of mind or body. If there is a relevant physical theory (not that physics had anything to say about mind) it would be quantum mechanics which had no position on time or space-time though as always there are lots of theories.

Therefore, i would think that using space-time as grounds for a proposition for mind or body is highly debatable therefore subject to endless argument at the propositional level. Until that debate is settled, which it cannot be, the syllogism cannot be used as any proof.

For the dualist, the physicalist has physical matter somehow produce the mind and consciousness, the mechanics of which has not been illustrated. For the physicalist, the dualist has two different substances on different modes of existence interact, the mechanics of which have not been illustrated. — Chany

I'm not sure the situation is quite symmetrical. Physicalism explains life, computation, and offers an active research program into consciousness. Dualism can't explain anything.

(1) If dualism is true, then mind is not spatio-temporal, and body is spatio-temporal.
(2) If mind is not spatio-temporal, and body is spatio-temporal, then mind and body cannot interact.
(3) Mind and body can interact.
Therefore, (4) dualism is not true. — quine

It's interesting to me that medical scientists - for example - in practice mix 'physical' and 'mental' terms all the time. The accepted definitions of placebos all refer to both the physical nature of treatments, and the beliefs and expectations of patients and medical practitioners.

There is therefore *methodological* dualism. Mental and physical terms are freely mixed in good science.

I'm an old Wittgensteinian about this stuff, so my question then is...what further question is then usefully answered by asking 'What is the world really made of?' What is the debate about ontology for? I see it's fun in a fictional sort of way, but how are we to know when someone is right? And how will it further our human ends? Will it tell us something more about placebos, for instance?

the notion of how physical matter, in some forms, produces consciousness and minds while it does not in other forms. — Chany

That's a very strange thing to see as a problem, though, because it suggests that in general, people don't understand how different sorts of matter, in different dynamic structures, can have unique properties.

I’d say “mind” (as the umbrella term) is spatiotemporal.

Observations:

• mind: comes and goes, starts and ends, un/consciousness (anesthetic) — temporal
• body (of which brain is a part): left to right, top to bottom, front to back — spatial

Evidence:

• mind without body: no credible examples — “mind moving among bodies”, “free floating minds”, “possessions”, …
• body without mind: examples abundant — the deceased, rocks, body persists (structurally) throughout mind, …

Reasoning:

All minds are uniquely associated with, and localized to, bodies. Therefore, by abduction, mind is contingent on body, mind is something body can do, and body is “moved” by mind, alike.

• mind is process-likes that change object-likes
• body is an object-like doing process-likes

As the old saying goes, you can’t misplace your body, but you can lose your mind. :)

Are there any significant reasons to think otherwise?
Does the above and (some sort of) physicalism contradict?
(Chalmers style mind-body problems, and the explanatory gap, aren’t so much contradictions, as they are “partitions”.)

every physical effect (i.e. caused event) has physical sufficient causes † — Agustin Vincente

† On the Causal Completeness of Physics (Jul 2006)

That very well maybe the case and I honestly think lines like this are worth talking about and arguing for. I actually am on the physicalist side. My overall point is that the argument in the OP is bad and that, until such a time comes in which the physicalist account can deal with its own mechanical problems, we should avoid using arguments against dualism based on potential unexplained/weird mechanical issues.

I agree with you if we are talking generally, but people (in my experience, usually dualists) try to use their viewpoint on the mind to defend a viewpoint on something that matters (free will or the existence of non-physical objects). It usually is not argued for intially, but is a careover or a requirment for another belief.

I don't think substance dualism really "solves" the mind-body problems, or the explanatory gap, as such.
Well, apart from simply asserting that the hypothesized "mind substance" somehow derives qualia, I suppose, though that doesn't seem like much of an explanation.
If "mind substance" isn't spatiotemporal, then it certainly doesn't account for the fleeting nature of phenomenological experiences.

As the old saying goes, you can’t misplace your body, but you can lose your mind. :) — jorndoe

Stole (and remembered) that from @Bitter Crank, and forgot to credit.

One only need to think of duality as two sides of the same coin. One can analogue this to wave-particle duality or energy-matter dualty in that one transforms into the other under certain conditions. Time itself does not participate in any of the dualities but rather becomes a manifestation of memory which evolves as the dualities change. However, memory does entail a mind and in this model the mind must be interwoven within the energy-matter duality being the impulse of movement as well as the observer creating the action-time. But to be clear, the is no separation. There is only one woven fabric. In Bohmian terms, it is the Implicate-Explicate Order. Matter is just impulses arising from the fabric.

It's not a question of our not having found a way for them to interact; it's rather deeper than that. If dualism holds, then mind and body are such that one cannot be reduced or explained in terms of the other - it's not like our not knowing the connection between gravity and quantum mechanics. Any causal connection between mind and body removed dualism by explaining one in terms of the other.

I decide consciously to raise my arm, and the damn thing goes up. (Laughter) Furthermore, notice this: We do not say, "Well, it's a bit like the weather in Geneva. Some days it goes up and some days it doesn't go up." No. It goes up whenever I damn well want it to. — Searle

There's the problem for dualism.

How is that the problem for dualism?

If the mind is not physical then why should it have causal influence upon the physical?

If the mind does have causal influence upon the physical then how is the mind not also physical?

It goes back to multiplying beyond necessity.
The physicalist will say that if the mind is physically causal, then it is because the mind is physical.
Or rather that if the mind is physically causal it is not necessary to regard the mind as non-physical.

Don't mind & body learn to cooperate over time.
Rug rats don't walk.
It takes time and lots of energy to learn how this apparatus works.

If the mind is not physical then why should it have causal influence upon the physical? — m-theory

What do you mean by asking why it should?

If it does have causal influence upon the physical then how is the mind not also physical?

Because unless the physical is defined as being whatever has causal influence on the physical (a circular and so vacuous definition) then having causal influence on the physical doesn't make that thing physical (at least not by definition).

The physicalist will say that if the [mind?] is physically causal, then it is because it is physical.

What does it mean to be physically causal? If you mean that it's physical and it's causal then the dualist will reject the claim that the mind is physically causal. If you mean that it has causal influence on the physical then the dualist will reject the claim that this entails that it is physical, as that would require that the physical is defined in a circular and so vacuous manner as explained above.

Or rather that if the mind is physically causal it is not necessary to regard the mind as non-physical.

Maybe not if you only consider the interaction problem. But there are other concerns that dualists will claim warrant regarding the mind as non-physical.

There's the problem for dualism — Banno

But for me Searle's descriptive language is methodologically dualist. He speaks simultaneously of a hand movement and of a decision, of wanting. In what way is he demonstrating that the decision itself has some sort of a physical basis? He only demonstrates that the consequence of the decision, of wanting, is physical. But the nature of the decision is left unclear.

What if it were said that body is an expression of mind; would you call that 'dualism'?