Hanover goes for Occam's razor. Nicely done.

The philosophical term ‘substance’ corresponds to the Greek ousia, which means ‘being’, transmitted via the Latin substantia, which means ‘something that stands under or grounds things’.

According to the generic sense, therefore, the substances in a given philosophical system are those things that, according to the system, are the foundational or fundamental entities of reality. Thus, for an atomist, atoms are the substances, for they are the basic things from which everything is constructed.

In David Hume’s system, impressions and ideas are the substances, for the same reason. In a slightly different way, Forms are Plato’s substances, for everything derives its existence from Forms. In this sense of ‘substance’ any realist philosophical system acknowledges the existence of substances. — SEP entry on Substance (Philosophy)

Note the original link between substance (philosophy) and being; suggests a notion of 'subject', rather than 'stuff', and is not to be conflated with

Substance (noun) 'a particular kind of matter with uniform properties'.

Note the original link between substance (philosophy) and being; suggests a notion of 'subject', — Wayfarer

I don't think so. The meaning is pretty intuitive. Ground, not subject.

Right - as in ground and consequent.

There's space and the things in it or things and the space in between; is that 1 or 2?

Following up on @Wayfarer in trying to set the meanings of some of the terms in the debate, these come from Wikipedia:

Substance dualism, or Cartesian dualism, most famously defended by René Descartes, argues that there are two kinds of foundation: mental and physical.[8] This philosophy states that the mental can exist outside of the body, and the body cannot think. Substance dualism is important historically for having given rise to much thought regarding the famous mind–body problem.

Property dualism asserts that an ontological distinction lies in the differences between properties of mind and matter, and that consciousness is ontologically irreducible to neurobiology and physics. It asserts that when matter is organized in the appropriate way (i.e., in the way that living human bodies are organized), mental properties emerge. Hence, it is a sub-branch of emergent materialism. What views properly fall under the property dualism rubric is itself a matter of dispute. There are different versions of property dualism, some of which claim independent categorisation.

Here is Hanover's explanation of property dualism::

there being a single thing and it will be called “matter” I presume, but whatever it might be called does not matter. It is a monistic goo that offers the underlying substance of everything, much like that flat white paint you buy that is then taken to the counter after hours of bickering to have just the right color mixed in. The property dualist explains there are two main colors in the world, not surprisingly called (1) minds and (2) bodies. So you see what has happened is that the substance dualist claims to have two different buckets of goo, yet the property dualist claims to have two different buckets of the same goo, just with different coloring in each.

Hanover hasn't defined substance dualism yet. He doesn't speak of it highly, given that it's his job to defend it. He says it "succeeds where property dualism fails to account for the conceptual coincidence, or interaction, of ideality (mind) and reality (body)." but he also says it's "anachronistic."

As an enlightened follower of Lao Tzu, I am clearly a monist, which isn't on the table, so I don't have a goat in this race. I will say, just because I always say it, both substance dualism and property dualism, and monism for that matter, are metaphysical concepts. As such, they are neither right nor wrong, only more or less useful in a specific situation.

Just as well, because goats are notoriously bad at racing. :wink:

Just as well, because goats are notoriously bad at racing. — Wayfarer

This is a misconception. A goat, Zev, won the Kentucky Derby in 1923, admittedly in the slowest time ever of 4 minutes and 7 seconds. Before the 1924 derby, Churchill Downs changed the rules so that only horses could run.

A goat, Zev, won the Kentucky Derby in 1923, — T Clark

As moderator, I'm obliged to point out errors of fact.

Zev was a horse.

But as everything is a goat, I'll let this pass.

:lol:

I'd like to see @180 Proof use his former copy writer skills and make a philosophical argument without the use of text formatting, unnecessary ellipses, and emojis. Somehow I get the sense the magic would be lost.

180Proof plays the 'dark matter' card! `

The vastly greater part of (physical) substance "cannot be sensed by our five sense" and yet is not "non-physical" (e.g. dark matter, planck scale events, brains insensible to themselves, etc) — 180Proof

The first two of which are plainly scientific concepts, the second arguably meaningless - and yet he then goes on to say:

I'm doing philosophy, not science.

Contradiction? Or not?

And, as for appeals to Wittgenstein, what to make of the seeming 'appeal to the transcendent' at TLP 6.41?

6.41 The sense of the world must lie outside the world. In the world
everything is as it is, and everything happens as it does happen: in it no
value exists--and if it did exist, it would have no value. If there is any
value that does have value, it must lie outside the whole sphere of what
happens and is the case. For all that happens and is the case is
accidental. What makes it non-accidental cannot lie within the world, since
if it did it would itself be accidental. It must lie outside the world.

6.42 So too it is impossible for there to be propositions of ethics.
Propositions can express nothing that is higher.

6.421 It is clear that ethics cannot be put into words. Ethics is
transcendental. (Ethics and aesthetics are one and the same.)

So does that mean there is 'nothing higher', or that there is 'something higher', but that it can't be expressed by propositions? I feel the 'something higher' seems rather dualistic in spirit!

The sense of the world must lie outside the world.

I am starting to appreciate Wittgenstein.

From remarks like that, the Vienna Circle arrived at the conclusion that metaphysics is meaningless nonsense.

I suppose that may also be the conclusion Wittgenstein arrives at. But note the similarity with Plato's idea that the Good transcends even the gods.

Perhaps Wittgenstein’s was a pregnant silence, rather than barren silence.

An article by his biographer Wittgenstein’s Forgotten Lesson

I'll read this, thanks. My original take on him was a bit contemptuous maybe. I came to the conclusion that, flawed and piecemeal as his thinking was, he was one of the very few in that analytic clique who understood that to try and break down philosophy into computable pieces (what I call "philosophy for computers" aka analytic philosophy) was an operation that, if successful, would kill the subject.

His TLP was the main reason for my contempt; I actually read it when in my 20's and found it ridiculous. But what I see now is that he too ultimately realized that the TLP was ridiculous. And from that realization onward, he tried to do better than philosophy for computers; i.e. to provoke some actual human thinking among his analytic peers in Oxford and Cambridge and stuff.

So in this little analytic world, he was the only sane one. No wonder they all quote him like the messiah.

@Wayfarer
As 180 would do. :up:

But as everything is a goat, I'll let this pass. — Banno

I have come across this but never knew it was a published article. A really insightful pastiche.

Right - as in ground and consequent. — Wayfarer

But no subject.

180 stumbles. Head builds momentum toward pavement.

mind-body problem probly

There's space and the things in it or things and the space in between; is that 1 or 2? — Cheshire

Yeah, there's spacetime and stuff in it. And there's massive and massless stuff. And electrically charged and not electrically charged stuff. There's vector stuff and scalar stuff. So much stuffs. Why instead we differentiate between stuff and what stuff does is beyond me. I know you can lick the orange, but can you taste its gravity?!? Your move, atheists!

Hanover gives me the impression he doesn't really believe what he's saying but I don't really know him or his opinions well.

Substance dualism succeeds where property dualism fails to account for the conceptual coincidence, or interaction, of ideality (mind) and reality (body).

(Note present tense.)

I contend that substance dualism will (1) offer a better explanation for how our thoughts are composed (as I've already discussed), (2) will offer a better explanation for questions related to free will, (3) will offer a better explanation for how we experience the world (providing an anchor for the infinite regress homunculus problem), (4) will offer a better explanation for our ultimate origins, and (5) will offer a better explanation for our purpose and meaning.

(Note future tense.)

I'm not sure how property dualism has been shown to fail (which ought to be the first argument), but the assertion that substance dualism _will_ (one day, I guess) succeed where property dualism fails seems rather an implicit admission that, as yet, it also has no success.

I'm not sure how property dualism has been shown to fail — Kenosha Kid

Neither property nor substance has succeeded in the sense of putting the question to rest for philosophers or scientists.

I think Hanover is saying that property tends to get overwrought pretty quickly in efforts to force it to make sense.

Substance has the advantage in the sense department in that it's not really trying to Explain Consciousness. It's just summing up the way we normally think about the issue. It reflects without trying to prove anything.

That works, actually. 180 needs to say yea but, not you didn't prove anything .

Hanovers approach doesn't require any exposition beyond pointing to what we all know.

From remarks like that, the Vienna Circle arrived at the conclusion that metaphysics is meaningless nonsense. — Wayfarer

And yet "The sense of the world must lie outside the world," is a metaphysical statement.

Boy, I'm pretty disappointed with the debate so far. No one has just sat down and stated what their position is and why they think it is a good way of looking at things. Absent that, all their comments just feel like ideas floating in space like grapes in a Jello salad.

There is also the wave-particle duality, which I think might correspond to the duality of matter and forms at sub-atomic level.

:100:

So does that mean there is 'nothing higher', or that there is 'something higher', but that it can't be expressed by propositions? I feel the 'something higher' seems rather dualistic in spirit! — Wayfarer

In terms of the present discussion, neither form of dualism is about what is higher. Both have something to do with the facts of the world and the representation of facts in language.

Why instead we differentiate between stuff and what stuff does is beyond me. — Kenosha Kid

Is this really an accurate generalization? I've read some of the material provided but this makes some sense. So, the argument is whether the "what stuff does" has a separate existence from stuff itself and not just a function of the arrangement of stuff?