William writes:
> No brains no thoughts. Show me a thought > independent of a living brain and I'll reconsider the dualist position. > But the dualist position is not that consciousness is independent of brain substance and activity. It's that consciousness is not itself material. Dualists are not uniformly dumb people. Do look into the Chalmers. Dualism is not my specialty, so I'm a poor spokesman. I grant that if you pinch my flesh you stir the brain to activity, but I can't concede that the neural writhing "is" my feeling of pain. The fire in the fireplace affects my skin and, through nerve connections, my brain. But I'd no more consider my feeling of warmth to be "identical" with the neural activity than I'd say my warmth is identical to the fire. A typical specialist's argument is that if you describe every possible thing about the material activity in the brain you still haven't described my feeling. William continues: > The origin of this dualism is the Bible and the expression, In > the > beginning there was The Word. > wc > I'm not quite as unthinking as that suggests, William. The "origin" of MY dualist convictions is not the bible. > > > ----- Original Message ---- > From: > "[email protected]" <[email protected]> > To: [email protected] > Sent: > Wed, May 16, 2012 9:10:41 AM > Subject: Re: "...The realm of emotion and > conscience, of memory and intention > and sensation." > > In a message dated > 5/16/12 9:49:34 AM, [email protected] writes: > > > > And it can't happen > without a living, pulsing brain. Oops, that's the > > realm of > > the physical, > ain't it? > > wc > > > > Dualists don't deny the physical, neural world. But, as > Updike conveys, > their honest conviction is that a feeling, a thought, is not a > material thing. > See David Chalmers's anthology, PHILOSOPHY OF MIND: Classical > and > Contemporary Readings.
