On Dualism and consciousness

This is a response to Migkillertwo's response to Nykytyne on dualism

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People & Blogs

Tags:

• dualism
• monism
• consciousness
• brain
• mind
• migkillertwo

[Jugglable]

I think brain activity may reflect activity of the mind, but the brain activity itself isn't the mind. If you have a little muscle spasm and your index finger moves up, you may look at it and go, "It isn't me doing that!" But if you move your index finger VOLUNTARILY, it is you moving it. The BRAIN is telling the same muscle to contract in the same way in both instances, but the difference is in one scenario free will is involved, i.e. your mind commanded it of your brain as a separate thing.

[ManicEightBall]

If you have a little muscle spasm and your index finger moves up, you may look at it and go, "It isn't me doing that!"

How is your finger not part of you? It may not be a conscious choice, but it's still you. Your heart beats without conscious control, but it's still your heart.

It may be that an electrical impulse may be firing from near your finger, but that doesn't have anything to do with your brain.

Your brain activity is what gives your consciousness, and that's why you feel in control.

[Jugglable]

Again with the theme of blame: If your friend has dysfunction in his motor cortex, causing muscle spasms, his arm may jump and punch you and he'll say, "sorry dude, *I* didn't do that! It was my brain."

If he punches you intentionally, of his own WILL, you'll see the same activity in the motor cortex causing the same arm movement. And he'll say, "Yeah, that was ME, you were being a jerk."

We are not our brain, rather we use our brain.

[ManicEightBall]

What kind of an example is that? I've never heard of anyone doing something like that, and I don't think for a minute you would say it's not them when they hit you. You can't just make up imaginary examples. You need to come up with something real.

By the way, even determinists will say that punishment is useful, but I'm not a determinist, so I'm not going to argue their point for them.

Oh yeah, and since I know you don't believe in determinism, I'm not going to argue over it with you.

[Jugglable]

Which brings me to another point. Monism is undermined by the fact that we hold people responsible for their actions. If we really are our brain and nothing more, and nobody chooses what brain they're born with, then the sense of personal responsibility goes right out the window.

[ManicEightBall]

I've never heard this argument before. How do you figure not having a soul means we're not responsible? Are you saying that we get to choose who we are born as? Are you saying that if we don't have a soul, then we don't have free will, and that if we don't have free will, then we can't be held responsible for our actions?

[hilbert54]

Our brains have evolved to be able to follow social rules. If during development a persons brain does not develop that capacity then we consider it defective and that person is not held accountable and is treated or removed from society. If a person has not learned societies rules or breaks them but is clearly able to follow them when it suits them, they get rehabilitated or punished. I hold myself responsible for my actions because I have the capacity for it and I was indoctrinated from birth.

[Jugglable]

I'm not talking about punishment. I'm talking about a sense of blame or accountability. You blame a person but not a tree.

[Jugglable]

Entertain the point I was making. Two scenarios, same bodily/brain activity, but in one is an act of free will, the other not. When it's not (just the body, i.e. misfire in motor cortex) we get the sense that it's not "us." The body seems to move of its own accord, the neurons seem to fire of their own accord. But we get the sense that it's not us moving it. Different experience w/ same bodily/brain activity-->we're not reducible to the brain.

[Jugglable]

We don't choose who we're born as. On materalist view: we're just made of matter, and matter has no free will; it is a slave to the laws of nature. So on a materialist view actions boil down to the influences of nature (our chemical makeup) and nurture (environment), and we choose neither, so we choose nothing. If your neighbor destroys your car or if a tree falls over on your car both the tree and the man are equally blameless. Both = just matter obeying laws.

[Jugglable]

It is too an argument! It may be a fallacious argument, but it's an argument. :)

Perhaps what I should have said is that the monist undermines his own position any time he does in fact hold somebody accountable.