Exbeliever seems to think he has a knockdown argument against Cartesian dualism:
“If the brain is clearly and demonstrably responsible for some aspects of a person's identity, personality, and behavior, it does not seem unreasonable to assume that the brain is responsible for all aspects of a person's identity, personality, and behavior.”
http://debunkingchristianity.blogspot.com/2006/03/soul-rational-belief.html
What a lovely non-sequitur.
Bishop Berkeley used the very same reasoning in reverse: “If the mind is clearly and demonstrably responsible for some aspects of a person's identity, personality, and behavior, it does not seem unreasonable to assume that the mind is responsible for all aspects of a person's identity, personality, and behavior.”
“ In fact, it seems as if the notion of a spiritual consciousness is completely superfluous.”
And the good bishop would say, “In fact, it seems as if the notion of matter is completely superfluous.”
“ If human identity, personality, and behavior can be determined by the brain it seems that this is the most natural explanation of human (non-spiritual consciousness). Any further additions would seem to violate Ockham's razor.”
And the good bishop would say, “ If human identity, personality, and behavior can be determined by perception, it seems that this is the most natural explanation of human (spiritual consciousness). Any further additions would seem to violate Ockham's razor.”
Moving along:
“If, instead, a theist asserts the transcendence of the spiritual consciousness so that it cannot be affected by the brain, many questions follow.
If, instead, the theist believes that a spiritual consciousness can affect the brain, but cannot be affected by the brain, then the spiritual consciousness would be much different than the consciousness of which the person is aware, and if the spiritual consciousness lived on, it would not be the same person.”
i) To begin with, you don’t have to be a theist to be a dualist. And you don’t have to be a dualist to be a theist.
ii) The typical dualist subscribes to interactionism.
Since Exbeliever, in his pig-ignorance of the opposing position, has foisted a straw man argument on the dualist, none of his subsequent defeaters defeat the other side.
With such elementary incompetence, is it any wonder that Loftus continues to expand his team of rejects to paper over the honeycombed quality of the reasoning?
Simply saying "the typical dualist subscribes to interactionism" doesn't solve the problem that exbeliever (and many others) have outlined:
ReplyDeleteDelineate the causal interaction between mind and body in regards to "perception".
Considering the identification of focal points within the brain which are responsible for specific elements of perception, claiming some transcendent immaterial "mind" and "perception" is quite an exercise in logic-bending. I suppose the corresponding immaterial elements of mind and perception float above those exact locations on the brain, and that the interaction occurs locally? I'm presuming. You tell me in your own words.
Demonstrating a causal interaction between matter and the immaterial is like painting a square circle (kind of like Reformed apologetics, in that regard). Let's see if you can get to the crux of the matter, rather than begging the question.