Dualism and model airplanes

If dualism is true, our relation to our bodies is analogous to the relation of the operator of a remotely controlled device (such as a radio-controlled model airplane) to that device. Now consider Alfred, who is operating a model airplane by remote control. Suppose that something–an unwary bird or a large hailstone–strikes a heavy blow to the model in midair. If the blow does significant damage to the model, we can expect that both the performance of the model and Alfred's ability to control the model will be impaired. But the blow will have no effect at all on Alfred…but if Alfred's body were struck by a heavy blow, and particularly if it were a blow to the head, this might have an effect on him, an effect that goes beyond his becoming aware of the blow and its damaging effects on his body and his ability to control his body: Alfred might well become unconscious. 

This is just the sort of effect we should expect if Alfred were a certain human organism, for if the processes of consciousness are certain physical processes within this organism, a damaging blow might well cause those processes to cease, at least temporarily. But what effect should dualism lead us to expect from a blow to the body? I submit that if we are non-physical things, and if the processes of consciousness are non-physical processes that do not occur within the body, the most natural thing to expect is that (at the worst) we should lose control of our bodies while continuing to be conscious. The blow to the base of Alfred's skull that in fact produces unconsciousness should, according to dualism, produce the following effects on Alfred: he experiences a sharp pain at the base of his skull; he then notes that his body is falling to the floor and that it no longer responds to his will; his visual sensations and the pain at the base of his skull and all other sensations he has been experiencing fade away; and he is left, as it were, floating in darkness isolated, but fully conscious and able to contemplate his isolated situation and to speculate about its probable causes and its duration. But this is not what happens when one receives a blow at the base of the skull. One never finds oneself conscious but isolated from one's body. 

Dualism, therefore, seems on the face of it, to make wrong predictions about what the human person will experience in certain situations. Here is another wrong prediction that dualism seems to make: if dualism were correct, we should expect that the ingestion large quantitates of alcohol would result in a partial or complete loss of motor control but leave the mind clear. P. van Inwagen, Metaphysics (Westview Press, 4th ed., 2015), 260-61.

i) I wouldn't say that if Cartesian dualism is true, we are non-physical things, simpliciter. Compare it to the nature/nurture debate. I'd be the same individual if I grew up in a different town. However, I'd turn out differently. If I grew up in rural Montana rather than Chicago; on a military base in Germany rather than St. Augustine, Florida; if I was an orphan; if my mother died when I was young; if my father died when I was young; if I had brothers, and so on, I'd be the same individual, but those formative experiences would have a tremendous shaping influence on my personality. I'd have different memories, different friends. Some of my beliefs might be significantly different. 

By the same token, embodied experience has an enormous conditioning influence on our personalities. Even though we can exist apart from our bodies, embodied experience profoundly shapes the mind. 

ii) When the brain is put to sleep (so to speak), people sometimes remain conscious but isolated from their bodies. Stock examples include near-death and out-of-body experiences. Then there's the more dramatic example of ghosts. 

iii) The remote control analogy is useful up to a point, but too superficial. Cartesian dualism is more immersive. Embodied experience is more like someone born into virtual reality, where his awareness is systematically filtered through the artificial stimuli. He has no awareness independent of the simulation unless the simulator is destroyed, and his sensory relays are uncoupled from the simulator.