DuE 🦧

Question 1

What is thread 1?

Answer 1

Substance Dualism
Conceivability argument
⇩
- This scenariois not conceivable
- What is conceivable may not be metaphysically possible
- This tells us nothing about our world

Question 2

What is thread 2?

Answer 2

Property Dualism
Mary argument
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Ability knowledge
⇩
Mary gains more than just abilities
⇩
So she gains acquaintance knowledge instead

Question 3

What is thread 3?

Answer 3

Any defensible dualist explaination
Interactionist dualism
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- Conceptual problem
- Empirical interaction problem

Question 4

What is the conceivability argument?

Answer 4

• I can conceive of my mind existing without my physical body
• Anything I can conceive of is metaphysically possible
• Therefore, my mind existing without my extended physical body is metaphysically possible
• If it is metaphysically possible for X to exist without Y, they aren’t identical.
  So my mind and body aren’t identical

a priori and deductive

Question 5

This scenariois not conceivable

Answer 5

• you cannot genuinely conceive consciousness without the physical. You think you can, but you strip away the body while keeping its functions
• This is akin to imagining health without any bodily systems, health depends on organs, conciousness may depend on the brain in the same way

Question 6

Conceivability does not mean possibility

Answer 6

• Conceivability is about imagination, not reality.
• Water equals H2O is necessary but was discovered empirically.
• Its negation is conceivable but impossible.
• Mind could equal physical in the same way.
• Therefore P2 fails.

Question 7

This tells us nothing about our world

Answer 7

• Even if dualism is possible in some world, that does not show it is true here.
• Bridges could be made of foam in another world. That does not show actual bridges are foam.
• So even if mind could exist without body, it does not follow that it does in this world.

Question 8

What is the mary argument?

Answer 8

• mary has propositional knowledge of all physical facts
• After seeing red for the first time she gains propositional knowledge of a new qualia (what it feels like to experience redness)
• Therefore there are some facts that aren’t physical
• Non-physical facts must be about non-physical properties
• So there are some non-physical properties like the mind

Question 9

Ability knowledge response

Answer 9

• mary already possessed all propositional knowledge
• when she experiences red she does not gain propositional knowledge
• She gains ability knowledge, the ability to recognise and classify objects by their redness

Question 10

Mary gains more than just abilities

Answer 10

• We can imagine Mary seeing red, and gaining the propositional knowledge of redness, but not gaining any of those abilities
• Even if she forgets it a second later, or cannot imagine it again,
• At that exact moment she saw red she still grasps a new fact, what the experience of red looks like.

Question 11

So she gains acquaintance knowledge instead

Answer 11

• when she sees red she already possessed all propositional knowledge
• But she gains the acquaintance knowledge of redness
• she knew all physical facts,

Question 12

Interactionist Dualism

Answer 12

Interactionist dualism. Interactionist dualism suggests that the non physical mind interacts with the body, and that the body interacts with the non physical mind. They both causally affect each other.

Question 13

Conceptual problem

Answer 13

• It is inconceivable that causation of something physical could occur without contact, this requires that both cause and effect are extended
• If a state of affairs is inconceivable then it is metaphysically impossible
• Interactionist dualists claim this, so interactionist dualism is false

Question 14

The empirical problem

Answer 14

If interactionist dualism were true then the law of conservation of energy would be false as new energy would be added to the physical world by the mind
We have good a posteriori evidence that the law of conservation of energy is true
So interactionist dualism is probably false.