Just a dualist. Between the material and immaterial. — Benj96

If you don't mind, please explain why you are, if I understand correctly, a "material-immaterial dualist".

:razz:

Like Sean Carroll I prefer the label physicalist rather than materialist. I'm not sure there is any real difference.

I prefer the label physicalist rather than materialist. — Down The Rabbit Hole

I prefer naturalist which covers them both.

(I also prefer atomist to materialist.)

Yes, fair point :up:

Unless the evidence forces us there, believing in a spirit realm feels like giving up on science.

Science is not perfect. It's often misused. It's only a tool. But it's the best tool we have. — Carl Sagan

This is what this thread is about, you incredibly incompetent people.

It is often thought, by those who haven't done much of it, that dualism conflicts with the principle of the conservation of energy. It doesn't, as I will now explain.

A dualist is someone who believes that though there is a material world made of extended substances, there are also immaterial entities - our minds - that are not extended in space. And a plausible dualist view would include the view that there is causal interaction between our minds and some of the extended substances, namely those we call our bodies. After all, our minds clearly do causally interact with the material world. Events in the material world seem to be causally responsible for my mental events, but my mental events in turn seem to be causally responsible for some material events.

So, if dualism is true, then we have material event A causing immaterial event B, which causes material event C.

By the very nature of the matter, scientific instruments will only ever be able to register events A and C, for event B is, by hypothesis, not a material event and is thus not sensibly detectable. And so whenever one has a material event of type A, this will be followed by an empirically detectable material event of type C. The mental intermediary will not be detected. In this way note that nothing in the dualist thesis will ever conflict with any empirical data.

The supposed evidence that dualism is false is that there would be a violation of the principle of the conservation of energy if the A-B-C picture was correct.

But how? First, note that the evidence that the principle of the conservation of energy is true is empirical evidence and no empirical evidence will ever conflict with dualism.

Second, in order for the principle of the conservation of energy to be violated, some energy would need either to disappear or be introduced into the picture by the addition of event B. But event B does not do this. We have no more or less energy in the system than if one supposed A caused C directly. Thus, there is no violation of the principle.

Perhaps the thought instead is that in order for A to have caused B, then some energy would need to be transferred - for all causal transactions, it is now being supposed, involve a transfer of energy. But that is not part of the principle of the conservation of energy. That's a new and distinct claim about the nature of causation.

If dualism is true, then there are causal transactions that do not involve a transfer of energy. The energy is transferred from A to C 'by' B. But the causation of B by A did not involve any transfer of energy. So to insist that all causation involves a transfer of energy is just to have stipulated that dualism is false, not provided us with any evidence of its falsity. It is just to have begged the question against the dualist.

So it seems there is no non-question begging argument that shows dualism to violate the principle of the conservation of energy. — Bartricks

@Bartricks Can you provide any example of what a non-material causation may look like to us?

If not then there is nothing here of note as we are effectively talking about something that cannot be measured or experienced. Experience requires change and change requires energy to be transferred.

A ‘non-thing’ exists as an idea of absence not as some ‘other-thing’. There is no ‘thingness’ to that which we cannot grapple with … because we cannot grapple with it because ‘it’ is not an ‘it’.

This is what this thread is about, you incredibly incompetent people. — Bartricks

Cries of a wet toddler because the adults can't decipher her babytalk. :yawn:

We have apparent direct experience of it all the time. By hypothesis, if dualism is true then your mind is an immaterial thing and your conscious states are states of an immaterial thing. And thus whenever you make a decision - a mental event - and that decision causes a material event - such as your arm raising or your fingers moving on a keyboard - then you have an example of an immaterial event causing a material event.

The immaterial event is not empirically detectable. If it was, it wouldn't be immaterial. Yet the existeence of such events is as clear as can be, indeed clearer than the occurrence of any material events.

But anyway, the issue here is not whether dualism is true. The issue is whether it is compatible with the principle of the conservaton of energy.

I have no argument with it being compatible with the conservation of energy.

As for the mind body dualism I have to reason to believe there is or is not such a thing. When it comes to that matter I am heavily in favour of the Husserlian approach where such questioning is of no real interest to me.

There is far more that we do not know that gives a window of opportunity to question the mainstream ideas with less popular ones. Long may such interactions continue! :)

I didn't say that. I said they can't be detected simultaneously. It can be detected by science but at the detriment to other certainties, which themeselves can also be detected in isolation. — Benj96

But if something becomes detectable, such as dark energy say, or some other exotic particle, let's even suggest the unlikely tachyon. If we detected a dark energy field excitation, then it would not be immaterial.
If it's detectable then how can it be labelled immaterial?

Like Sean Carroll I prefer the label physicalist rather than materialist. I'm not sure there is any real difference. — Down The Rabbit Hole

I consider those terms synonymous, and I am a Sean Carroll fan.

I prefer naturalist which covers them both. — 180 Proof

Yeah, I might switch to that label! It is clearer. Your command and depth of knowledge of terminology and philosophy continues to impress. You should offer your contact details as a rehab for bar tricks students.

Unless the evidence forces us there, believing in a spirit realm feels like giving up on science. — Down The Rabbit Hole

I kinda feel the same way about the word 'immaterial.'

Can your baker friends not answer your OP for you better than any TPF member can?

I showed how consciousness is made of states of pastry and that I am a croissant.
-Bartricks

Yet the existeence of such events is as clear as can be, indeed clearer than the occurrence of any material events. — Bartricks

Nonsense. It what sense is a 'mental event' immaterial? Mental events are detectable in brain scans and I can confirm my own mental events to you verbally! How is that immaterial?

The issue is whether it is compatible with the principle of the conservaton of energy. — Bartricks

No! the concept of duality and conservation of energy are about as compatible as science and belief in the supernatural.

I kinda feel the same way about the word 'immaterial.' — universeness

Yes, the immaterial is the spirit realm.

According to @Bartricks immaterial things don't need energy to function. However, ghosts and minds would still create physical energy when they move things in the physical world, contrary to the conservation of energy principle.

However, ghosts and minds would still create physical energy when they move things in the physical world, contrary to the conservation of energy principle. — Down The Rabbit Hole

How do you know what ghosts and immaterial minds would/could do?
What are you labelling a ghost? Some remainder of dead humans?
Do you think such entities exist, based on evidence you have studied, in depth enough to believe it would stand up to scientific scrutiny?
Surely claims that the immaterial exists must first convince the scientific community before people such as bar tricks asks us all to comment on its relationship with dualism or its compatibility with conservation laws.

I highly recommend that anyone interested in the topic of energy and the conservation laws related to it, watch this:

You will be far more informed if you do!

Yes, a ghost like Casper. If Casper started moving things in the physical world, but required no energy himself, he would be adding energy from nowhere?

This thread is about whether the principle of conservation is compatible with duaiism. Is A compatible with B. I have argued that they are.

If you think it is about whether the principle of conservation is true, or whether dualism is true, then you're really bad at philosophy. Trust me: I assess how good people are at philosophy for a living. And you're shit at it if you think the issue here is whether A or B is true. It's whether they're compatible. If you can't understand the difference, then you belong on a production line or a frontline. Thinking isn't for you.

According to Bartricks immaterial things don't need energy to function. However, ghosts and minds would still create physical energy when they move things in the physical world, contrary to the conservation of energy principle. — Down The Rabbit Hole

What on earth are you on about? Read the OP and address something in it. Don't just state things.

According to Bartricks immaterial things don't need energy to function. However, ghosts and minds would still create physical energy when they move things in the physical world, contrary to the conservation of energy principle. — Down The Rabbit Hole

Good summation. Ghosts are fine provided they don't do any work (W=Fs).

Another one of 's joke threads.

Have you peer reviewed anything, Banno? No. I do it all the bloody time. Now, the argument in the OP is published. Not by me, but it is out there in print. Indeed, the article in which the point was made was a prize winning article. So, hmmm, your ability to discern a good argument from a joke one is non-existent, isn't it?

...the argument in the OP is published. — Bartricks

Link or reference? Or was it in Mad Magazine?

"There are no good objections to substance dualism"
JOSÉ GUSMÃO RODRIGUES
Philosophy
Vol. 89, No. 348 (April 2014), pp. 199-222

That well known joke journal, 'Philosophy', the oldest of the lot and published by the Royal Institute of Philosophy. It's such a laugh.

This? Section 6?

Seems to me on a quick read there are sufficient differences between that article and your OP for you not to be guilty of plagiarism. :wink:

But what about my on-topic comments concerning plagiarism?

Further, my comment concerning work shows the problem with the argument in the Rodrigues article, too. It's not just that spirit does not conserve energy, but that it cannot do work - make any changes.

I might be wrong. Address the physics.

So, you think your comments above are on topic because another one on something different was? Excellent reasoning.

As for the article I referenced, the point made in the op is made by him in that article. That you can't see this is to be expected, given you can't tell a good argument from a joke and given you still don't understand the op.

...the point made in the op is made by him in that article. — Bartricks

But where? Your argument in the OP relies on transitivity between three events, A, B, C. There's no similar argument in section 6, where the Gomez article addresses conservation. I don't think you did plagiarise his argument.