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Forms in the real world can be seen in the brain.

Yeah neurotransmitters are chemicals, they are physical, they have physical properties which are in principle quantifiable/measurable... so the comparison to the mass of the rocks in a desert actually wasn't a terrible one (and certainly not some decisive argument or distinction against physicalism as javra apparently took it to be); in other words, its practically infeasible, but not impossible in principle.

And just in general, the form or style of argument by those defending dualism here just appears to be one gigantic appeal to ignorance. As with creationism in biology, the idea seems to be that dualism is the default and so if one can pose questions or problems that physicalism is purportedly unable to answer, that suffices to establish dualism. Which, obviously, it does not, this is patently fallacious. And ultimately, even if we grant e.g. the "hard problem" and other popular arguments against physicalism, dualism is stick with its own even harder problem, of how a metaphysically distinct category of the mental interacts with and causes changes in the physical world.

The article misrepresents science as a saying anything certain about the soul. In fact, a dualist point of view is essential to science.

In fact, a dualist point of view is essential to science. — Olivier5

How so?

And ultimately, even if we grant e.g. the "hard problem" and other popular arguments against physicalism, dualism is stick with its own even harder problem, of how a metaphysically distinct category of the mental interacts with and causes changes in the physical world. — Seppo

I don't think this problem is hard to solve. If the mental resides in the physical, all problems are solved. The mental, like electric charge, or one of the other three, reside in matter too. They are properties projected into matter to describe its behavior when lumps of matter interact in space.

Charge and mass are properties of matter involved in their interaction in space. The exact nature of charge and mass are not known. Whatever theory you use to explain them, invariably leads to the use of the very ingredient you want to explain. For example, if charge is explained as a vibrational mode of a string confined within the bounds of a compact space, you are left with the question how a string can vibrate in the first place. Vibration needs charge or force so explaining charge by a vibration is circular as you use charge in explaining it.

So all you can say about charge is that it is a property related to the way things interact. I think the same holds for "mental charges". They are properties not of small particles, but of complicated structures, like a working brain. Particles are not carried along by charge and nor is charge carried along by particles. There is just an interaction between charged particles. Neither charge nor the particles carrying it are "in charge".
I think the materialistic approach faiIs in explaining the nature of charge (electric, colored, mass, though the nature of mass is different from the nature of its electric or colored counterpart). To assert it can explain the nature of the "mental charge" is equivalent (identical, similar, equal, corresponding, 1-1 related) to assert that physical charges can be explained. Which can't be, for who knows what's it like to be an inanimate piece of matter? We know what's it like to be an animate people, and thus we know the nature of the mental charge directly. Explaining the nature of mental charge by reference to a materialistic process overlooks the charges residing in these processes, which can't be explained but experienced only.

So dualism already exists at the basic level of nature. Does that remove science from the scene? Not at all. But it denies that science is able to explain both aspects of the dualism.

why would a "neural representation" be assumed in the first place?
— Andrew M

Because this: representation is necessarily the case, and because neurons are the only possible source of representations as such, therefore neural representations. — Mww

You say it as if you believe it. But if the conclusion fails empirically (as Feldman's paper claims), then that raises questions about the premises.

Cartesian theater was never the case, and subjective experience has long evolved from Descartes, as ↪Wayfarer so aptly noted. — Mww

Could you expand on what you mean by "subjective experience"? I'm primarily addressing the paper that Wayfarer quoted where that phrase was used (and which was specifically equated with "qualia").

I'm sceptical about their dismissive attitude, as I think that the subjective unity of experience is an elemental constituent of self-knowledge; our experience, our being, functions as a unified whole. But the Feldman paper says 'There is now overwhelming biological and behavioral evidence that the brain contains no stable, high-resolution, full field representation of a visual scene, even though that is what we subjectively experience (Martinez-Conde et al. 2008). The structure of the primate visual system has been mapped in detail (Kaas and Collins 2003) and there is no area that could encode this detailed information. The subjective experience is thus inconsistent with the neural circuitry.' — Wayfarer

I'm not sure you're fully understanding B&H's position. Feldman is saying that we "subjectively experience" a "full field representation of a visual scene" (which doesn't seem to be in evidence, hence the 'binding problem'). Whereas B&H's position is that we experience the world (say, watching a sunset). The inclusion of "subjectively" and "representation" just is the homunculus looking at a theater screen. Remove those terms (and the conceptual scheme they represent) and no binding problem arises, since there's nothing to bind or synthesize. There's no binding of a sunset, it's already of one piece, so to speak.[*]

In other words, there is no "subjective unity of experience" because there is no "subjective experience (aka qualia)". There's just the garden-variety experiences of watching a sunset, or kicking a football around with your kids. As Bennett and Hacker say:

The brain does not have to synthesize a representation of the tree out of representations of its size, shape, colour and orientation - it has to enable the perceiver to see the tree and its features clearly. — History of Cognitive Neuroscience, pp37-38,55 - Bennett, M. R., Hacker, P. M. S.

--

[*] What we might do is reflect on our experiences and use language to talk about them which, of course, is representational.

The Binding Problem - the unity of consciousness

Relevant sentences about dualism from SEP - Dualism
Discussion about dualism, therefore, tends to start from the assumption of the reality of the physical world, and then to consider arguments for why the mind cannot be treated as simply part of that world.
Whether one believes that the mind is a substance or just a bundle of properties, the same challenge arises, which is to explain the nature of the unity of the immaterial mind.
In the philosophy of mind, dualism is the theory that the mental and the physical – or mind and body or mind and brain – are, in some sense, radically different kinds of thing.

"Bearer of attribute" dualism
As it may be argued that relations only exist in the mind and not the world, then "bearers of attributes", of which relations are fundamental, must also only exist in the mind.
Then in this sense the mind is radically different from the world, which is dualism.
But "bearer of attitude" dualism does not explain the binding problem.

"Material with uniform properties" dualism
Even if there is a "material with uniform properties" dualism which has properties that explains the binding problem, and which is not part of the physical world, then how can we understand it if not amenable to scientific investigation.

Both routes seem insoluble to us.

Would we understand the solution even if shown it
It is true that one question to be asked is how do we solve the binding problem, but before we ask this, a prior consideration is that even if we were presented with the answer, do we, as humans, even have the intellectual capacity to understand the answer.

As we don't expect a horse to understand the allegories within The Old Man and The Sea, why should we, as humans, expect to understand the solution to the binding problem.

What does it mean to understand something
IE, before trying to understand the binding problem, can we justify to ourselves that even if presented with the explanation we would understand it. What does it even mean to understand something ?

:smile: All the very best to everyone for the coming year :smile:

Whereas B&H's position is that we experience the world (say, watching a sunset). The inclusion of "subjectively" and "representation" just is the homunculus looking at a theater screen. — Andrew M

No, I don't buy that. The subjective unity of experience refers to the way that all of the disparate elements of experience are present as a unified whole. I appreciate what I've read of Hacker and Bennett's analysis of the 'mereological fallacy' but it doesn't apply here. When we watch the sunset we're aware of the colours, the sounds, the wildlife, the trees, the clouds in the sky, our feelings, the thoughts in our mind, all as elements of a subjective whole, of watching the sunset. It's indubitable that I am a subject of that experience and that the experience is unified; I don't receive signals from my sensory organs in the third person and then work on integrating them. I see, hear, smell, feel, and reflect. The mind is integrating the data into a sense of aesthetic appreciation. The research quoted says that while scientists have been able to identify many of the specific neural structures associated with the elements of experience, they can't identify any neural structure which orchestrates all of those disparate elements into a simple unity. I personally find that is suggestive of the idea of there being 'a principle of unity', which sounds rather like the traditional designation of 'the soul'.

The need to posit an 'homonculi' arises when you try and imagine, or objectify, that natural process of synthesis that the mind is constantly engaged in - when you try to think about it from the outside, as it were. You can't do that, because you're never outside it.

If the mental resides in the physical, all problems are solved. — Raymond

If you consider the elements of thought, such as reasoning, inference, language, abstraction and so on, then there's no plausible way to reduce them to the physical, because they belong to a different order of description and explanation. Sure if you think about the mind in neurological terms as 'what a brain is doing', then there's potentially a neurological explanation. But consider what you're trying to explain. An important part of what the human mind does is the use of rational inference - if this, then that, if that, then this must be the case. The scientists conducting those neural scanning experiments are doing this all the time - they're saying that you can identify patterns in the neurological data which they say mean such and such. When you're educated to interpret that data, you can see what it means also. But that process of inference and explanation is itself what you're seeking to account for if you wish to explain the workings of the mind. And there's nothing like that in the data itself. You're not literally going to see the elements of reason or language in neurological, or any, data. You bring those to what you're viewing by your own power of reason, through all of those processes that are internal to the workings of thought.

In fact, a dualist point of view is essential to science.
— Olivier5
How so? — 180 Proof

Science is a logos about matter.

If you consider the elements of thought, such as reasoning, inference, language, abstraction and so on, then there's no plausible way to reduce them to the physical, because they belong to a different order of description and explanation.  — Wayfarer

I totally agree. It's the mental content of matter which we are talking about here. Like physical charge contained in physical matter, this can't be explained by reference to the matter it's in. Thoughts are contained in matter like charge is contained in particles. Physical charge cannot be explained with a language referring to the stuff it's in, like particle fields, atoms, molecules, cells, organs, brains, you name it. Even the charge of an electron cannot be explained, let alone that of a huge collection of them.

So the supposition that everything is matter only leaves out a very important aspect of matter. The charge that's in it. Charge is routinely used in the description of matter. That can't be denied. What can be denied is that we have an understanding of the notion of charge. We don't know what it is. Which isn't to say we can't experience it, like the charge of our brains and bodies. Consciousness cannot be explained by material processes, only experienced. I think it's an a priori for interaction, like charge is for interaction between particles.

So, as you seem to imply rightly, looking at the brain by means of all kinds of advanced equipment, like you are looking at a physical process, lacks an understanding of the contents, the charge of what you are looking at. Only the one you are looking at this way can truly understand this content. You can note there is a neuronal pattern of a checkerboard in the brain of a mouse if she looks at a checkerboard but the very image of a checkerboard is a mental state that cannot be explained materialistically. You can use materialism for describing the mental from the outside, but what's on the inside cannot be explained.

Happy new year! My ears are still banging. Some pretty heavy fireworks were fired last night. As if war broke out! BHOMB!

How does that warrant your statement that "a dualist point of view is essential to science"? The "logos" is categorical and therefore pertains to metaphysics, not to physics, etc.

How does that warrant your statement that "a dualist point of view is essential to science"? — 180 Proof

I count two things: a logos on the one hand, and the material thing the logos is about on the other hand. Note that these two things are inherently apart, the map being by necessity always different from the territory.

......the brain contains no stable, high-resolution, full field representation of a visual scene, even though that is what we subjectively experience (Martinez-Conde et al. 2008) — Wayfarer

....what is being described here is close to, or identical with, what Kant describes as synthesis. (....) I wonder if @Mww would agree with that. — Wayfarer

He would, with the caveat that Kant is talking about the rational side of human mentality, but the brain having no representation of a visual scene, is the empirical side of brain mechanics.

Hence the inescapable duality of being human: there is no place in the brain for visual representation, but humans think in images.

(Delete overly extensive and manifestly unsolicited exposition on the real explanatory gap, so as to prevent the your sorrow, and the gallery’s dirty looks, for asking me whether I agreed with something or not.)

I don't think this problem is hard to solve. If the mental resides in the physical, all problems are solved — Raymond

Hardly, even supposing that "the mental resides in the physical" (and supposing that this is even a meaningful phrase in the first place, given that "residing in" is a physical or spatial relation) the interaction problem remains in its entirety: how do they interact? Where do they interact? How is a "where" even meaningful when we're talking about a non-physical metaphysical substance?

So I think its fairly instructive that, in a post claiming the problem isn't hard to solve, the best you can do is this same vague mysterian gesturing; this suggests the problem is hard indeed. And so even if the "hard problem" is hard, the dualist's problem is even harder by orders of magnitude. If I were a neuro- or cognitive scientist, or philosopher of mind, its pretty clear which paradigm would look more optimistic and fruitful... and its not dualism.

I still think the OP's proposition is overbroad: the truth of dualism wouldn't mean all science is wrong, since there's a good deal of science that doesn't involve any mental/physical interactions. But it would mean that a significant portion of our current understanding of physics is wrong, as Banno already argued (for instance, regarding energy conservation). And so the fact that our current understanding of physics doesn't look wrong (its predictions fitt the observational evidence extremely well), is itself fairly strong evidence that dualism is wrong.

Could you expand on what you mean by "subjective experience"? — Andrew M

I only used the compounded terminology because that was how it was originally presented. All experience is subjective, in that any experience belongs only to the rational agent that reasons to it, therefore “subjective experience” is superfluous.

I reject the concept of “qualia” outright, as superfluous as well, insofar as the given senses of them are already accounted for in established metaphysics. That is not to say they are false, or don’t have their own predication, but only that such predication has earlier, and better, representation.

While advocating modified theories, or generating new ones, is perfectly warranted, if the modified or new theory doesn’t justify relinquishing the old one, it doesn’t really serve any purpose, other than perhaps making a name for its provocateur.

Hardly, even supposing that "the mental resides in the physical" (and supposing that this is even a meaningful phrase in the first place, given that "residing in" is a physical or spatial relation) the interaction problem remains in its entirety: how do they interact? Where do they interact? How is a "where" even meaningful when we're talking about a non-physical metaphysical substance? — Seppo

Why shouldn't it be a meaningful statement? Is it meaningful to state electric or color charges reside in a particle? I think it is. Likewise with mental charge, which even can be considered as a huge collection of charges. The body then lies between these mental charges and the physical world, the outside of which we see as the material world.

Science is about this outside, material aspect of a dualistic reality, and there is a lot of knowledge about it, though artificial mostly. That's why science is kind of an art.

While advocating modified theories, or generating new ones, is perfectly warranted, if the modified or new theory doesn’t justify relinquishing the old one, it doesn’t really serve any purpose, other than perhaps making a name for its provocateur. — Mww

The question is: when is it justified? A new theory can always justify itself by the simple fact of being there. It might or might not relinquish the old theory. That just remains to be seen. In the early sixties, quarks weren't needed to explain the old hadron and meson world. Where they provocative? Same holds for preons nowadays. What is the provocation of today is the reality of tomorrow.

Provocative theories might offer new ways of investigation. If quarks and partos weren't introduced (Feynman didn't believe in quarks), there wouldn't have been searches for them set up.

Because "residing in" is a physical or spatial relation. How can a mental substance or entity stand in a physical or spatial relation, without itself being physical? What does it mean to say this, if we're not conceding that the mental is physical after all? No similar problem applies to particles having charge because particles are physical objects, and charge is a physical property.

Indeed, in this context its not uncommon to define the physical as that which exhibits the sorts of properties or relations we deal with in physical theory- to be physical just is to have properties like mass, charge, volume, velocity etc. and to be able to stand in physical (spatial, temporal, causal, etc) relations with other physical objects or forces.

Because "residing in" is a physical or spatial relation. How can a mental substance or entity stand in a physical or spatial relation, without itself being physical — Seppo

Because it's mental stuff. Why can't mental stuff reside in physical stuff. Physicists even call it something: charge.

The question is: when is it justified? — Raymond

Depends on the premises of the theory, I guess. Empirical theories are justified by correspondence with natural law; metaphysical theories are justified by correspondence with logical law.

Subtleties sold separately.

Why can't mental stuff reside in physical stuff — Raymond

I've answered this twice now:

Because "residing in" is a physical or spatial relation...

Indeed, in this context its not uncommon to define the physical as that which exhibits the sorts of properties or relations we deal with in physical theory- to be physical just is to have properties like mass, charge, volume, velocity etc. and to be able to stand in physical (spatial, temporal, causal, etc) relations with other physical objects or forces.

If you're saying that "mental stuff" can stand in physical relations with physical stuff, then you're essentially saying that the mental is physical after all (on at least one plausible/common definition of the physical). Either that, or making a category error.

(I also think you're either confused about what "charge" is- charge is a physical property of physical objects/matter- or are using words in a highly non-standard way without indicating that you're doing so)

Because "residing in" is a physical or spatial relation

No. Residing in is not a spatial relation. Charge can reside in an electron. What's spatial about that?

also think you're either confused about what "charge" is- — Seppo

There is no physicist who is not confused by this concept. You can name or label it. But that's it. Explaining it as a vibrational mode of a string redirects the question to the string. What makes a string vibrate?

Given the usual English meaning of the phrase "residing in" is certainly is a physical relation ("residing in" is equivalent to being situated, located, or physically present in- a spatial relation).

If otoh you mean "reside in" as something like being a property of ("charge can reside in an electron"), its hard to see how this isn't a physicalist proposal, that the mental "resides in" the physical in the same way that charge "resides in" an election. At the very least, you need to be much more specific here.

Why can't mental stuff reside in physical stuff. Physicists even call it something: charge.

Physicists don't use the word "charge" to talk about "mental stuff residing in physical stuff", they use the word "charge" to talk about a particular physical property of matter. So far as I'm aware, physicists don't have a word for "mental stuff residing in physical stuff", because that's not something physics concerns itself with (and if it did, then the mental = the physical after all).

Given the usual English meaning of the phrase "residing in" it certainly is a physical relation ("residing in" is equivalent to being situated, located, or physically present in- a spatial relation). — Seppo

Charge is attached to a particle. So both have to be at the same place. Always. They can't be pulled apart. So charge always has the same spatial relation to a particle. Which makes it non-spatial.

Physicists don't use the word "charge" to talk about "mental stuff residing in physical stuff", they use the word "charge" to talk about a particular physical property of matter. So far as I'm aware, physicists don't have a word for "mental stuff residing in physical stuff", because that's not something physics concerns itself with (and if it did, then the mental = the physical after all). — Seppo

But what is electric charge? They don't know.

If you're saying that "mental stuff" can stand in physical relations with physical stuff, then you're essentially saying that the mental is physical after all (on at least one plausible/common definition of the physical). Either that, or making a category error. — Seppo

:up:

Subtleties sold separately. — Mww

:smirk:

I count two things: a logos on the one hand, and the material thing the logos is about on the other hand. Note that these two things are inherently apart, the map being by necessity always different from the territory. — Olivier5

Yes, there is distinction but not separation (i.e. "inherently apart") insofar as a map, like an analogy, is an abstraction of formal aspects of the territory derived from some concrete aspects of the territory that is used to survey delineate and interpret some other concrete aspects of the territory (origami or "rhizomatic"-like); therefore, only in the sense of property dualism, Oliver, do I agree with you.