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Other philosophy communities have only interpreted the world in various ways. The point, however, is to change it. [ x ]

"I thunk it so I dunk it." - Descartes

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I'm desperately trying to take mind-body dualism seriously and failing (hexbear.net)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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It's literally like this:

Materialists/Physicalists: "The thoughts in your head come from your conditions and are ultimately the result of your organs and nervous system. Your consciousness is linked to your brain activity and other parts of your body interacting with the physical real world."

Dualists: "Ok but what if there were an imaginary zombie that has the same organs and molecular structure as a living person but somehow isn't alive on some metaphysical level. If this zombie is conceivable, that means it must be metaphysically true somehow."

Materialists: "That's circular and imaginary, isn't it?"

Other dualists: "Ok but what if I were in a swamp and lightning strikes a tree and magically creates a copy of me but it's not actually me because it doesn't have my soul."

Am I reading this stuff wrong or are these actually the best arguments for mind-body dualism

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Personally I don't think it makes any sense.

But what I think is just a hallucination caused by the matter and the energy imparted upon that matter when everything came into existence, which we're just seeing unfold in exactly the way that it always would have :edgeworth-shrug:

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Determinism is just Calvinism for nihilists

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Determinism is just Calvinism for nihilists

In everyday practice, especially when it's brought up in an unsolicited way, yeah pretty much. It's related to the "love is just chemicals, relationships are all transactions" crowd and has a lot of overlap of being abrasive and smug and reductionistic.

I'd argue with capital-D Determinists, but there's no point because the outcome of the argument is ostensibly predetermined anyway, even though acting and behaving like it's predetermined also changes the outcome and in general people are happier and better off not humoring determinism in their everyday lives to begin with. :the-more-you-know:

https://existentialcomics.com/comic/125

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

which we’re just seeing unfold in exactly the way that it always would have

For now, I subscribe to the notion that the uncertainty in physical theories of thermodynamics and quantum mechanics is not a mere consequence of our mathematical models but a feature of the underlying reality. Maybe someone will find a better theory that unmasks what I think modern physics considers to be intrinsically random process in QM as epistemic (i.e., our model is flawed). That kind of development would be world-changing and might really upset Penrose lol.