Forums → WEPR → Dualism

The idea to create this topic came from reading the OP of this thread.

After reading it, I find it amazing that people take for granted, that humans have ''souls'', without actually delving deeper into it:

The idea that man is made of both matter and something insubstantial has been around for thousands of years. Since the advent of religion, and the concept of an afterlife, people have held the belief that there is a physical and non physical aspect to each and every person - dualism. Despite the fact that it is riddled with fallacies, more people seem to believe in dualism than monoism, despite the fact that the latter is more supported by logic.

The first problem with dualism is the interface between the two forms of existence (physical and non physical.)

Dualism presupposes that a connection exists between the non physical mind and the physical brain and body. It does not, however explain in any way how this connection exists, or in which state this connection exists.

The idea that there is a connection between the physical and non physical relies on one of two fallacies.

Firstly, that there is a third state of being, somewhere in between physical and non physical which obviously moves away from the idea of dualism by creating a third state of being. Logically however, we must then create more states of being to connect the new state of being to the original states, andthen continue this pattern ad infinitum for the infinite amount of states that will eventually occur.

This idea falls prey to the second fallacy of the dualistic connection, being that if there is a connection between these two states of existence, it must be either physical or non physical, which then fails to accomplish any sort of connection, (or a non physical connection) to connect the physical existence to the non physical existence, nothing is being accomplished, and no connection is being established. Once we accept this second fallacy we require a new connection between this physical connection and non physical existence, and the fallacy comes full circle, returning to the original goal. The idea that any connection can exist between the physical and non physical presupposes either a third form of existence, or a non existent connection, and therefore, the idea of a connection between the physical and non physical fails.

Now that it is apparent that there can be no connection between the physical and the non physical existences, and we are limited to our physical experiences for our data and input, how can we have any knowledge or data about this non physical existence? It is obvious, of course, that we are limited to our physical experiences for our data and input, as all of our senses are physically based. If we have no real knowledge of the non physical existence, we cannot justify anything about such an existence. Because we have no true knowledge about a non physical existence, dualism is shown again to be intrinsically flawed.

A common argument for dualism consists of the idea that the mind and body, an admittedly physical entity, can continue to exist without the ''life'' of the mind, and therefore they are two different types of existence. Unfortunately, because we have no real way to know about the non physical existence, we have no way to truly tell if the mind has died. Aside from this, brain death does not necessarily constitute mind death either, in the dualistic view. Because of this, the argument, that the body can exist without the mind is not necessarily true, as we have no way to know when the mind has died, and brain death does not necessarily equate to mind death. Therefore the argument that dualism is logically consistent because the body can live without the mind and thus they are two separate things, fails.

Any questions?