MONISM VS DUALISM & PSYCHIATRY 3/4 DENNET & SEARLE

http://www.NiallMcLaren.com
Niall McLaren- Psychiatrist and author of 'Humanizing Madness', 'Humanizing Psychiatry' and 'Humanizing Psychiatrists'.

An explanation of the failures of the major monist models of mind in terms of their value for biological psychiatry. Daniel Dennett's functionalism and John Searles' biological naturalism are not monist at all, they are actually closet dualist theories in that the authors have retained the properties of a dualist model of mind even though they have given them different names. This is of major significance for biological psychiatry as there is now no possible explanation of mental disorder in a biological model.

Note: This is a lecture taken from my paper due out soon "Monist Models...." and from the first chapters of my new book 'Humanizing Psychiatrists.'
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Books (Amazon.com)
http://www.amazon.com/Humanizing-Madness-Psychiatry-Cognitive-Neurosciences/d...
http://www.amazon.com/Humanizing-Psychiatry-Biocognitive-Niall-McLaren/dp/161...
http://www.amazon.com/Humanizing-Psychiatrists-Toward-Humane-Psychiatry/dp/16...

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• biological
• psychiatry
• Daniel
• Dennett
• John
• Searle
• Niall
• Jock
• McLaren
• monist
• monism
• dualist
• dualism
• philosophy
• mind
• science
• psychology
• medicine

[Eatthesimia]

You give a dualist conception of thought and then claim that therefore whenever anyone talks about thoughts/ideas they are enacting dualism? It's a relatively simple task to show a case from bottom-up causation for copyright law and see how it is grounded in a single physical reality. You also fail to offer how you would define monism. Regrettably you are unable to do this for the simple reason that you clearly believe that mind and brain are different things.

[jockmclaren47]

@Eatthesimia I do believe mind and brain are of a different order of nature. Don't you? I don't define monism because I believe it is a false idea, like a perpetual motion machine or a square circle. Do you really believe that copyright law is determined by molecules? Please show how the laws of thermodynamics determine that copyright shall now last for 60 yrs when previously it was 25.

[KWrestler21]

McLaren is taking a quite desperate step by labeling Searle's "higher levels" of the brain as seperate from the physcial. There is no way because there are higher attributes of the brain that it necessarily negates something that is materialistic. I assumed since I haven't heard of this guy or his arguements that he was wrong, but now I'm disappointed that I'm right and for wasting my time.

[jockmclaren47]

@KWrestler21 See the full case in books and other publications. These videos are just snapshots. Searle's argument fails as he incorporates dualist elements to complete the causal chain in his putatively monist model.

[KWrestler21]

@jockmclaren47 So what you're saying is: Let's deal with Dualism, but we can't use dualist language to disprove it.

Yeah, that's reasonable. And I've seen quite a lot of the case, if not know the argument at large. I take a quick easy step in the comments section of the first video to show how your model doesn't work.

[jockmclaren47]

@KWrestler21 I did not say that. The human mind is dualist in the sense that it is an informational space generated by the brain. It is therefore subject to the laws of the semantic realm in which it operates, not the laws of the time-space continuum as the brain is. While you're busy showing why my model doesn't work (and nobody else can but we await your efforts), kindly also apply the same critical attitude to Dennett, Searle et all. They don't come up as well as they and their acolytes hoped

[KWrestler21]

@jockmclaren47 (continuing) What's truly feeble about all this is that you address not one single argument I presented. Your rebuttal to my argument, which had many points, was that I didn't break down your model. That is like me saying the world is a banana. You tell me how it's not. So, I say "You proved nothing." I didn't present a model or theirs'. I presented how the dualist model does not work. Again, I presented how the dualist model does not work. I did not present how their models work.

[KWrestler21]

@jockmclaren47 Let's focus on this again: "The human mind is dualist in the sense that it is an informational space generated by the brain. It is therefore subject to the laws of the semantic realm in which it operates, not the laws of the time-space continuum as the brain is." And, this means that the human mind is not the brain. I think this should be made very clear to everyone. You think the human mind if not the human brain. I mean, that should be the end of my argument, but I'll continue.

[KWrestler21]

@jockmclaren47 (continuing) Chalmers completely denies the multiplicity of a state of existence if this "gap" is not reconciled. This counterargument insofar as a defect of functionalism, Searle would actually agree with Chalmers. His separating point would rather be that functionalism's problem with being physicalists is that they weren't physical enough. And since Chalmer can't, at the least, reconcile how our consciousness is just a series of neuron firings, then he secedes to failed dualism.

[KWrestler21]

@jockmclaren47 And you must not be familiar with the literature whatsoever if you think that this is the big problem in Searle's argument to Chalmer's hard problem. The argument doesn't rest on language just on the objective/subjective dilemma, which the dualism is supposedly birthed from. And that dilemma is reconciled when you take into account that you can have a subjective experience of the world while certain qualities of the world remain objective in purely scientific forms.