X-Message-Number: 17534
Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2001 17:23:22 -0500
From: david pizer <>
Subject: Calling all physicists  - need help!

Mind/body dualists tell us that there is no need for cryonics because the
mind is a non-material substance which lives apart from the material brain
and body, and can survive the death of the brain.  The argument against
that has always been that a non-material substance could not cause changes
in a material substance, so the mind (if it were non-material) could not
cause changes in the physical body. In the past, we rejected dualism
because we tend to think that our mind does cause changes in the body.  As
I type this, my mind causes my fingers to push certain keys, etc.

What has held down the contemporary theory of mind/body dualism has been
when the anti-dualist asks the question:  "*How* can a non-material
substance like a non-material mind cause changes in a material body?"

Contemporary dualist now have an answer to that question.  They say it is
an inappropriate question and so it should be rejected.  They often refer
to a concept called "action at a distance" to prove that there are
inappropriate questions in science that should be rejected.

Their theory that there are inappropriate questions rests on the claim that
there is supposed to be an experiment that is claimed to be common
knowledge in physics, where:

1.	The researcher releases two photons simultaneously (at exactly the same
time) - Let's call them A and B.  

2.	Then the researcher interferes only with A.

3.	And then he/she measures A and B simultaneously.  

4.	Whatever change the interference caused in A, an exact type of change
has been found in B.  

This is called "Action at a distance."  Action at a distance is supposed to
be a causal connection from A to B without intermediary events.  

So if, in this instance, you ask how does A cause B, the word "how"
presupposes there are intermediary events between the cause and effect.
But there is no explanation and there can not be one.  So the question of
how A causes B should be rejected, just as the question: "Have you stopped
beating your wife?" should be rejected.  

"Have you stopped beating your wife?" presupposed (inappropriately) that
you were beating her in the first place.  

The fact that the non-material mind causes changes in a material body, say
the dualists, is a "brute fact" just as action in photon A at a distance
causes action in photon B is just a brute fact.  Just as a square has 4
sides is a brute fact.

The mind body dualist would say this photon experiment shows that there are
inappropriate questions that should be rejected.  Just as the scientist
should reject the question: "How does action in photon A cause a change in
photon B?" we should also reject the question:  "How does an action in an
immaterial mind cause a change in a material body?"

The dualist would say there are psychophysical laws, like non-material
thoughts in non-material minds cause changes in material bodies, that are
brute facts.  

A dualist would say there is causation, but it is not a process.  (I wonder
if causaton is not a process, what the heck could it be?)

For those of us who want to question mind/body dualism and the possible
survival of the mind (soul?) surviving the death of the brain, we will need
answers to prevail over them.


Got any?

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