# In Defence of Dualism **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 24, 2019, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-defence-of-dualism/832962 "2019-04-24T00:18:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2019, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-defence-of-dualism/832962/121 "2019-04-25T23:50:44Z")
> [@Max\_S](#): > > That’s fine, but it’s a different form of consciousness than the one I know how to base morals on. There’s no agency. > > ~Max Define “agency”. ---
**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2019, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-defence-of-dualism/832962/122 "2019-04-25T23:55:27Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > Does a soul have a personality? Does it match the personality of the mind at birth? > Can the soul’s personality change - understanding it would not change due to changes in the material body. If so, how? > Can the sould actually do anything except watch? If it cannot, how can it be judged? > My reference to deism was no about the concepts being connected, but more as another example of belief in something for which there is by definition no evidence and which is unfalsifiable. It might have a personality but that doesn’t matter because souls have no causal effect on the physical world. No causal interaction means nothing to observe, and nothing to observe means no evidence and therefore dualism is unfalsifiable. That is why I made the central question here whether dualism is a better basis of morality than monism or pluralism. We can talk about how people might act if they used dualism to justify moral beliefs, and discuss whether that is better or worse or the same but more complicated than an alternative. The other option is to say morality is unnecessary or undesirable. I dismissed that argument out of hand in the first post. ~Max ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2019, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-defence-of-dualism/832962/123 "2019-04-25T23:58:59Z")
> [@Max\_S](#): > > It might have a personality but that doesn’t matter because souls have no causal effect on the physical world. No causal interaction means nothing to observe, and nothing to observe means no evidence and therefore dualism is unfalsifiable. And also, “my” soul can have no causal effect on any of the things I say or do. (Unlike my consciousness, which definitely does.) > [@Max\_S](#): > > That is why I made the central question here whether dualism is a better basis of morality than monism or pluralism. We can talk about how people might act if they used dualism to justify moral beliefs, and discuss whether that is better or worse or the same but more complicated than an alternative. How does one use dualism to justify a moral belief? Any moral belief. Just list one. One moral belief, and how dualism justifies it. ---
**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2019, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-defence-of-dualism/832962/124 "2019-04-26T00:05:09Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > I can’t even imagine how having ectoplasmic parasites spying on us should improve our morals, or even imply a moral system at all. Care to elucidate? The assertion is that with physicalism, there is no moral system at all. This is because there ceases to be qualia, and without qualia there is no sentience, without sentience no harm or pleasure, good or bad, morality or immorality. This is my main argument. There is an additional argument: if you have the ring of Gyges, nothing is stopping you from being perfectly immoral. Finally I suspect that society is unsustainable without dualistic beliefs. ~Max ---
**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2019, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-defence-of-dualism/832962/125 "2019-04-26T00:11:08Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > But you _haven’t_ argued that morals based on Duelism leads to demonstrably better behaviour-you’ve merely stated it without providing evidence that it is so. This is because I was shot down and told to read “Consciousness Explained” before I had any basis to criticise physicalism. I haven’t read the book yet, but I will. In the meantime I’m still responding to others (supposedly from ignorance) but I forgot to lay out my argument until the last post. ~Max ---
**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2019, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-defence-of-dualism/832962/126 "2019-04-26T00:14:40Z")
> [@eschereal](#): > > Consider the pea. Originally, it was not a thing. It came from a plant called “pease”, which itself was a singular form, but, since it sounded like a plural, the word “pea” eventually arose as a back-formation to describe a single seed from the pease plant. > > Similarly, “soul” is a back-formation out of the application complex thought. Its origin lies in the survival instinct present in lifeforms, and is easily observable in a great many animals. It clearly has evolutionary advantage, because beings invested with the desire to survive will tend to prevail over beings that are indifferent to their own survival. > > What does that mean for morality? Nothing. The “soul” is not a player in morality, other than the fact that it drives our desire to survive. Morality is only about maintaining our relationships with other people and critters in ways that optimize comfort and survival. The “soul’s” depiction of our survival is used by the brain when making moral calculations. > > Is there more to it than just that? What is my singularity, into which all perception seeems to flow? What is “me”, that is so discreetly and irrevocably isolated from “you” or “her”? Why should it matter, really? It just is, and the survival instinct accounts for it completely. Everything else is fiction (until someone can provide solid evidence to the contrary) and “dualism” is superfluous. I don’t know how to bold on this forum, but this is the point I am trying to make: > [@](#): > > The “soul’s” depiction of our survival is used by the brain when making moral calculations. That is all - I am not advocating dualism as necessary except when making moral calculations. I am not defending its truth or falsity. ~Max ---
**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2019, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-defence-of-dualism/832962/127 "2019-04-26T00:20:31Z")
> [@eschereal](#): > > That is a distinction without a difference. It is like saying “This computer does not generate sums, it just adds numbers”. I’m not sure if you’re on my side or not, but it makes a difference when I - my brain - decide whether or not to provide that stimuli. ~Max ---
**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2019, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-defence-of-dualism/832962/128 "2019-04-26T00:32:16Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > (italics mine) Please define “retroactively”, because the way you are using it suggests that your proposed “soul” time travels. Retroactively as in the qualia experienced by a soul depends on the physical representation of memory in the body, not on “previous” qualia. Souls don’t copy brain states into the non-physical world and somehow that becomes sentience. They have a wholly different process, a non-physical one. Quite literally magic. ~Max ---
**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2019, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-defence-of-dualism/832962/129 "2019-04-26T00:39:19Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > Let’s be clear here - the traditional way that dualism supposedly drives moral behavior and improved outcomes. > > 1. There is a god. It is the ultimate arbiter of morality; morality is basically defined as “whatever the god autocratically demands”. > > 2. People don’t actually die - they live forever. Physical death doesn’t kill them; it just sheds their unnecessary physical bits and leaves their persisting physical bits. Humans _are_ the soul; when you interact with a human, you’re really interacting with the eternal soul inside. > > 3. The god will punish the undying people for anything they did that the god considers “immoral”. > > 4. Based on the above, people do “moral” things because they wish to keep the god happy either because they love the god and don’t want to displease the one they love, or because they fear the god and don’t want to displease the one they fear (and get punished for it). > That’s the source of dualist “morality”. (Note that “morality” is in quotes, because I personally don’t consider this to be morality at all - what it is is obedience, which is different from morality.) > Now let’s look at your model. First thing to notice is that your model lacks a god, and thus you’ve just lost everything that gave dualism is supposed claim to supposed morality. Not a good start. Second thing to notice is that people no longer have eternal souls - they are simply adjacent to things _called_ “souls”, which may or may not be eternal. So humans don’t live past death or experience life past death. So even if there was a god, there’d be no threat of punishment - the only reason to follow god would be because you love him. And you don’t need a soul to do that. > > Your dualist model strips away everything that even _pretended_ to impart morality to the system. 1. Deism is compatible with my form of dualism so long as the deity keeps to the spiritual realm. 2. Except for the undying part, this is a core premise of dualism. By interacting with a person, you are interacting with a soul. When evaluating morality, the human who has human rights is in fact the soul behind that body. The undying part is also compatible with my form of dualism. Souls could even be recycled, still compatible. 3. This is a sub-type of deism described in the first bullet. A deity is free to judge souls in the spiritual realm and the rules applied by the deity (nonfalsifiable by the way) would drive moral action here in the physical realm. 4. Also compatible. There are other paths to morality, and I brought up the gathering of souls interpretation (none of the above) because that is more egalitarian but can still drive moral calculations here in the physical realm. ~Max ---
**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2019, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-defence-of-dualism/832962/130 "2019-04-26T00:42:57Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > I look forward to helping it die. > > This is not possible within your model. By declaring that the soul cannot influence the material world, you are saying that the thoughts in the soul’s mind can’t influence the movements of the body. > > In your model I can’t possibly be typing this post. My thoughts, in my mind, in the “soul”, are being conveyed to the computer by the movements of my fingers. > > If you are reading this post, that is ironclad proof that your model is not representative of reality. I think of the body as an automaton. If only the automaton, when deciding whether or not to take an action, considered the effect on its and the other’s souls! We would have a basis for morality among the automatons. ~Max ---
**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2019, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-defence-of-dualism/832962/131 "2019-04-26T00:44:06Z")
> [@eschereal](#): > > Or there could be one great universal (or multiversal) spirit, and what we perceive as “souls” are merely punctures in its ectomembrane through which our minds transceive our Qi. That’s something I would identify under monism, possibly idealism. ~Max ---
**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2019, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-defence-of-dualism/832962/132 "2019-04-26T01:31:37Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > Reminds me of people that insist that the pyramids _must_ have been a creation of aliens because Man just isn’t capable of such feats all by himself. I would like to distinguish my defense of dualism because, as a rule, souls cannot affect the physical realm. ~Max ---
**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2019, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-defence-of-dualism/832962/133 "2019-04-26T01:50:49Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > In NORMAL dualism souls provide people with consciousness. In YOUR dualism they don’t because you explicitly said that souls can’t influence the physical world and while I may have missed it I haven’t seen you back down from that. If by “people” you mean “physical bodies”, you are correct. My form of dualism does not provide physical bodies with consciousness. Neither does it provide physical bodies with sentience. Neither does it assign any morality to a physical body without reference to an associated soul. Your implied outrage over dualist morality would only make sense if you were a reverse-solipsist. Somehow you, a non-dualist with sentience but not a soul, have been placed in a world where every other meat-sack thinks you are a mere zombie undeserving of rights because you don’t have a soul. I believe that is the outrage you want to point at. To the contrary, other meat-sacks would look at you and assume you are a soul linked to a body just like them. They would afford you the same rights as consistent with their own. Perhaps if one were to run about for long enough, shouting “I have no soul! There is no such thing!”, and maybe start foaming out the mouth, one might find themselves viewed as a lesser person. On the other hand, the same could possibly be said of me running about a world of physicalists, foaming at the mouth and shouting “Sentience exists only in the spiritual realm! My body cannot feeeeeeeel!”. ~Max ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2019, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-defence-of-dualism/832962/134 "2019-04-26T01:53:00Z")
> [@Max\_S](#): > > I would like to distinguish my defense of dualism because, as a rule, souls cannot affect the physical realm. As a rule, souls have not been shown to exist at all. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2019, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-defence-of-dualism/832962/135 "2019-04-26T02:10:00Z")
> [@Max\_S](#): > > Retroactively as in the qualia experienced by a soul depends on the physical representation of memory in the body, not on “previous” qualia. Souls don’t copy brain states into the non-physical world and somehow that becomes sentience. They have a wholly different process, a non-physical one. Quite literally magic. > > ~Max “Throughout history, every mystery ever [solved](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3115289/), [has turned out to be](https://www.omicsonline.org/open-access/the-pernicious-effect-of-mind-body-dualism-in-psychiatry-219.php?aid=34885)… [not magic](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhGuXCuDb1U).” - Tim Minchin. ---
**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2019, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-defence-of-dualism/832962/136 "2019-04-26T02:12:38Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > Since I’m all about the computer analogies, consider the soul, the brain, the body, and the browser I’m typing in to all be separate things that transmit information to one another via cords. (The cords analogize to any form of communication you like.) If the thought starts in the soul, then the soul **has** to have a cable to the brain, and from thence to the body in order to communicate the text of this post to the body and from it down another cable to my keyboard. **And your model has cut that cord.** If you don’t explicitly allow the soul to be physically altering the physical world then there’s no connection there, no cable, and nothing in my soul can be typing this post. And when I say “altering the physical world” we’re talking literal magic. Literal miracles. Happening constantly. Right under cognitive scientists’ noses. Here is the problem in your example. You assume that souls can think like brains can think. This is another category mistake. Maybe they do, maybe they don’t. It makes no difference. For all practical purposes we can say thinking originates in the physical brain. What is important is that souls can feel. > [@begbert2](#): > > That’s what we’re talking here. If the soul isn’t magically manipulating the brain, then the soul has nothing to do with anything anyone does. Correct again. Souls have no causal interaction with the physical world. It is entirely up to brains in the physical world to define the soul and act as if souls existed. ~Max ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2019, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-defence-of-dualism/832962/137 "2019-04-26T02:55:22Z")
> [@Max\_S](#): > > Here is the problem in your example. You assume that souls can think like brains can think. This is another category mistake. Maybe they do, maybe they don’t. It makes no difference. For all practical purposes we can say thinking originates in the physical brain. What is important is that souls can feel. Uh, feelings come from thinking also. What you post here is not making sense. > [@Max\_S](#): > > Correct again. Souls have no causal interaction with the physical world. It is entirely up to brains in the physical world to define the soul and act as if souls existed. > > ~Max Well, thing is that smarter people than me already figured that out, as noted in one of the cites I made, “Mind/Body dualism has adverse consequences for psychiatry, such as stigmatization of mental illness, restricted funding for research and patient care, discrimination against patients with psychiatric or addictive disease in the insurance market place and leads to cognitive distortions affecting the training and practice of psychiatry.” So, no, there is no need to act as if souls existed in a very peculiar interpretation of dualism. In reality it can be harmful in some situations. That is the trouble for thinking that there is a literal separation when a lot, if not all of it, should be seen as a metaphorical separation. ---
**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2019, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-defence-of-dualism/832962/138 "2019-04-26T03:01:13Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > The thing that is typing these words into this browser is being driven by something that is able to identify itself as a self. > > This means that that particular self is able to causally influence events in the physical world. (Specifically, it’s making my fingers push keyboard keys.) > > In your model, are souls able to causally influence the physical world, or not? Within the context of dualism, the thing that is typing is not properly your self. If you believe the above exposes some sort of inconsistency within dualism, you are mistaken. Within the context of dualism: [ol][li]My soul is my self. (axiom)[/li][li]My soul is a non-physical entity. (axiom)[/li][li]Therefore, my self is a non-physical entity.[/li][li]My body is a physical entity. (axiom)[/li][li]A physical entity is not a non-physical entity. (axiom)[/li][li]Therefore, my body is not a non-physical entity.[/li][li]My body is not a non-physical entity. (3)[/li][li]My self is a non-physical entity. (6)[/li][li]Therefore, my body is not my self.[/li][li]The thing that is typing is my body.[/li][li]My body is not my self. (9)[/li][li]Therefore, the thing that is typing is not my self.[/ol][/li] ~Max ---
**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2019, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-defence-of-dualism/832962/139 "2019-04-26T03:05:27Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > As a rule, souls have not been shown to exist at all. But this is irrelevant unless you assert an entity must be shown to exist in order to positively influence behavior. ~Max ---
**Author:** ![Tatterdemalion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/43a26b/32.png) [@Tatterdemalion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tatterdemalion)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2019, 3:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-defence-of-dualism/832962/140 "2019-04-26T03:10:21Z")
> [@Max\_S](#): > > But this is irrelevant unless you assert an entity must be shown to exist in order to positively influence behavior. > > ~Max Um yes? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-defence-of-dualism/832962.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-defence-of-dualism/832962.md?page=8)