From what I have read of contemporary philosophy of mind, it would seem that dualism(or at least substance dualism) has fallen out of favor with alot of philosophers. Why is that? Is it still a respectable theory to hold? I believe that it is still a pretty good theory, considering the mystery of consciousness does not seem to be able to be solved from a purely materialistic basis. What are your thoughts?
its my understanding that physicalism and dualism are both disfavoured.
Sure enough, there appears to be more than physicalism can explain: any causal account seems to miss the point that this sensation we are having is entirely apart from the rest of the world. As demonstrated thus:
A perfect neurologist lives in a completely black and white world. She observes the brain of someone seeing blue. Does she now know what blue is?
One of my lecturer is into this stuff (Dan Hutto, Beyond Physicalism).
On the other hand, dualism doesnt answer the problem either. Just as the mind is not the brain (though they are causally related) the mind is not an object in its own right. The success of psychology makes any mystification of the mind kind of silly.
So, some kinda dualism might be necessary, buts it gonna be nothing like the theories of the past.
Dualism is ineffable truth.
Hmm, I wonder why there has to be such a balance of positive and negative electrons atomically, so our universe doesn’t clump together?
Why 2 genders, 2 poles of earth? If you look for it, if you really look into nature, you will keep on seeing a wide variety of dualisms.
Perhaps you see things in a dualistic sense because you view the world from behind a human distortment. You’re assuming the answer… this is circular.
The problem with dualism is its lack of explanatory power. You throw in that secondary realm when you don’t know something, not as a way to explain something useful.
The problem with the Mary thought experiment, that black and white seeing nuerologist above is that she if she were to be surprised, it means she didn’t know enough. If she were perfect and knew everything there was to know about seeing blue, actually seeing blue wouldn’t make a difference.
The mistake with that experiment is that you posit initial conditions that are then ignored at the conclusion.
Perhaps I am not being specific enough here, but I believe that dualism fell out of favour for the reason that it places too many limitations on people’s philosophies.
By this, I mean to say that dualism is a very narrow viewpoint of the universe and existence, etc. It almost prevents or gets in the of investigating much futher into a philosophy of worldview. It simply states: “Everything is mind or matter. If you think otherwise, your simply a monist(sp?)”. Too cut and dry.
…Just my 2 cents, anyhow. 
You all say this, but two poles don’t always have to be “opposite” – they just have to be unique, and there can be more then two poles.
You think the ineffable is limiting and narrow?
- Comprise of duality.
- All signal comprises information.
- All structure is built upon organizations and organizations surround structure both infinitely and sub-infinitely.
- Comprise of charge (electric – where charge which has no mass), that is, are electric.
- Every element, particle, molecule or thought etc., is comprised of contradictory complementaries.
- The notion of the term “negative†should not be considered as a term of negation when used in conjunction with electric and magnetic physics.
- We humans have the unique power of negation which used correctly leads to free will – where used incorrectly leads to error.
- Our ‘conscious minds’ are objectively biased where our ‘subconscious minds†are subjectively phased.
- The Sun is not powered by thermo-nuclear reaction but is the focus of a universal electrical discharge.
- Nuclear transmutation is a natural and Universal constant process.
- All subatomic particles, including the electron, are resonant structures of electric charges of opposite sign that sum to the charge on that particle.
- The electron is not a fundamental, point-like particle as it must have structure to provide its dipole magnetic field.
- There must be orbital motion of charges within the electron to generate the magnetic dipole.
- The transfer of electrical energy between the charges in their orbits must be resonant and near-instantaneous for the electron to be a stable particle. The same model applies to the proton and the neutron.
- A neutron combines the charges from a proton and an electron in a barely stable resonance, which decays in minutes. Its decay must have a cause and may involve an interaction with a neutrino. However, when combined with protons it seems neutrons form a new stable resonant structure that serves to bind the protons electrically despite the overall positive charge on the nucleus.
- The most collapsed form of matter is the neutrino, which has a vanishingly small mass. However, the neutrino must contain all of the charges required to form two particles – a particle and its antiparticle. This symmetry explains why a neutrino is considered to be its own anti-particle.
- A neutrino may accept energy from a gamma ray to reconstitute a particle and its anti-particle. “Empty space” is full of neutrinos. They are the repositories of matter in the universe, awaiting the burst of gamma-radiation to expand them to form the stuff of atoms.
- The weird “zoo” of short-lived particles created in particle accelerators and seen in cosmic rays is simply unstable resonant systems of charge.
- The mathematical relationship (E=mc2) represents the restructuring of resonant systems of charge.
- “Annihilation” is the complementary resonant charge structures of a particle and its antiparticle combining so that almost all of the internal energy is radiated away and the combined charges form a new collapsed particle of low internal energy.
- The equivalence of inertial and gravitational mass implies that gravity is also an electrical force.
- Mass is an electric property of matter.
- Gravity is an electric property of matter, a variable and not a geometric property of Space.
- Ampere’s law for the magnetic force between two current carrying wires is found to be equivalent to the transverse electric force caused by the distortion of electrons in an electric field. This distortion causes them to form tiny collinear electric dipoles. That is, the magnetic force is simply another manifestation of the electric force.
- The electron, one of the fundamental particles of nature, carries an electric charge. But it also possesses a second property, called spin.
- Charge is responsible for electricity, while spin underlies magnetism and, until now, information technology has decreed a clear division of labor between the two: Charge does data processing while spin does data storage.
- Light is a transverse electromagnetic wave moving through a medium; the æther as stated by Maxwell.
- Differentiation is a cyclic energetic process common to the life or intelligence processes and can be considered as quantum in effect.
- Stability leads to instability as simplicity leads to complexity.
- The Universe is of 99.9999% Plasma.
- A plasma is a volume (of medium) of moving charges.
- All volumes of plasma are surrounded by double layers (DL) consisting of two thin and close regions of opposite charge excess which give rise to a potential drop.
- Plasma volumes self-organize to consist of elements of similar characteristics e.g. density, charge.
- The ‘aether‘ of space (medium) is of neutrinos.
- In the vacuum of space, each cubic centimeter is teeming with neutrinos. And since neutrinos are resonant orbiting systems of charge, like all matter, they will respond to the electric force by distorting to form a weak electric dipole aligned with the electric field.
- The speed of light in a vacuum is a measure of the delay in response of the neutrino (aether) to the electric force.
- There are no “Black Holesâ€, no “Neutron Stars†and the World is not flat!
- Black holes are a mathematical fiction, a near-infinite concentration of mass, required to explain concentrated sources of energy seen at galactic centers, by employing the weakest force in Nature – gravity.
- Plasma cosmology shows that where electrical energy is concentrated at the center of a galaxy, gravity can be ignored in favor of far more powerful electromagnetic forces.
- Electric current, passing through a plasma, will take on the corkscrew (spiral) shape discovered by Birkeland. These Birkeland currents most often occur in pairs.
- The ability of Birkeland currents to accrete and compress even non-ionized material is called “Marklund convection”.
- There is a tendency for Birkeland current pairs to compress between them any material (ionized or not) in the plasma. This is called the “z-pinch” effect.
- There are no “worm holes†and no going back in time.
- The Universe is a dynamic process of coagulation and coalescence.
- “Universal Time†(the universal instantaneous time moment) is scaleable.
- The electrical relationship between matter and mass allows us to understand how quasars can be newborn objects that have low mass and brightness and high intrinsic redshifts. With time, their mass increases and their intrinsic redshift decreases in quantum jumps.
- Quantum effects also occur on a galactic scale.
- Pulsed electromagnetic fields have been shown to regulate virtually every cell function, including DNA synthesis, RNA synthesis, protein synthesis, cell division, cell differentiation, morphogenesis and neuroendocrine regulation.
- These findings are relevant for they acknowledge that biological behavior can be controlled by “invisible” energy forces, which include thought. (Bruce Lipton)
- The ‘speed of light’ is not the Universal time barrier.
- Gamma Ray Flashes (GRF) are abounding in Earth’s atmosphere.
- Chaos in Universal terms is an acceleration in relative time caused by an increase in energy from the “norm†and relates to the end of one cycle and the beginning of a new cycle.
Brad, BMW, Gobbo,
Come to me, – solidly disprove.
Where duality can explain many things, it is but a stepping stone as is all theories. Each theory harbors true, false and combinations of both.
Why not accept the theory as such and learn all you possibly can from it. When you feel you have gone as far as you can, move on. To avoid it or dismiss it entirely you will miss perhaps something that can help you. You may even be able to use it to comprehend other theories and beliefs.
okay, you joke.
Now, when do you want to talk?
Brad: your right in your initial criticism of mary the colour scientist
But there is a second criticism, Wittgensteins point regarding knowing internal mental states. You can’t know something that you can’t doubt (it runs contrary to the grammar of the words “to know”)
Philosophical Investigations 221
So in actuality despite her (possible) suprise upon seeing blue, it doesn’t grant her any further knowledge, since internal mental states are not knowledge.
Wow, good point. W again. 
Still, I’m stuck with initial conditions here. We (you and I) obviously can’t doubt our own mental states, but can Mary?
Or is that logically impossible?
Can you expand on that a bit?
PS. Noticed your footer. Davidson fan?
I always assumed that Mary was intended to be human in this example, even if she’s not it doesn’t actually matter. Since mental states are by their very necessity (its in the make-up) inncorigble
, Rorty - Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature
They are uncorrectable and undoubtable. If anyone is in having a mental experience (say pain) it is impossible to doubt it. i.e. I am in pain but maybe im not, maybe its a pleasure? Obviously makes no sense. And as pointed out before the grammar of the words “to know” ensure that doubt must be possible and certaintly it cannot be logically excluded.
As for davidson, sure add some logical notation and you got yourself a beautiful reductionist theory of mind.
p.s. Brad it’s great to see someone who reads philosophy and has a desire to learn and communicate here, I thought that this way of thinking had died out of ILP a long time ago.
In addition Dan~: Why do you think that because there are two poles or two genders there must be two substances? (mind body) That seems no more rational than me saying there are 9 planets thus there are 9 planes of existence before entering heaven or I have 10 fingers and 10 toes thus perhaps we have 10 bodies and 10 minds? per individual? Your examples are meaningless and unrelated pseudo-philosophy.
The more I think about it, the more I realize I got sidetracked with that question. It doesn’t matter that Mary can’t doubt her mental state of seeing blue, it just matters that she’s not surprised by that. How does a new experience, an experience that triggers a different part of the brain in any way lead to a dualistic formation?
Doesn’t Rorty somewhere talk about the difference between knowing how to ride a bike and knowledge of the physics of riding a bike?
Or say, the difference between reading poem about love and actually being in love?
Can’t we understand both knowing how and knowledge of without having to resort to some dualistic mystification?
PS It’s certainly more fun to talk to others who read 20th century philosophy. At the very least, they help organize your reading list for the coming year. 
technically, in my opinion, what leads to dualism is the fact that mental states don’t ‘seem’ to be brain states (probably for good eveloutionary reasons and logical reasons). And since some misguided people identify the incorigigble nature of mental states as “perfect knowledge” they believe they can’t be anything else. But like all mental verbs (including conciousness) a theory of intensionality must apply therefore we can assume that just because objects of conciousness dont appear to be brain states that doesn’t imply they arn’t. Therefore the normal justification for dualism can be refuted.
This justification is found in modern proponents of such ideas (e.g nagel and chalmers especially), since they suggest something like this:
P1) There is something there is like to be so-and-so or experience so-and-so,
P2) So-and-So doesn’t feel physical
C) It’s not physical but mental only (no coreference).
Clearly this is just plain wrong, and easily countered by either wittgensteins point or a theory of intensionality.
Dualism is as silly, as still harbouring thoughts of the world being flat, Sure it appears flat from our vantage point, but we know its not, and wishful thinking won’t make it otherwise.
What makes you say that?
its fair enough, dualism is a fairly antiquated theory.
Well, it’s old for sure, but silly? Come on. I just dont see why people think its done for.
well then you fail to understand the content of this thread you started