# 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:** 9
**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, 6:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-defence-of-dualism/832962/161 "2019-04-26T06:43:03Z")
> [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#): > > Well, but then, you can just do an end-run around this whole dualism thing and have the physicalist act as if physicalism provides a basis for morals. Or literally anything else: morals are due to a higher power, or due to objective moral laws, and so on. Dualism only seems to complicate the matter, because it’s not straightforward to argue that it succeeds in providing a basis for morals, so if you would have us pretend that something we can’t possibly know to be true is actually true, why not choose something where the case is made more easily? When a physicalist acts in such a way he ceases to be a physicalist. The higher power and objective moral laws would fit into dualism, not any sort of physicalism I am aware of. I would admit defeat in an instant if someone convinced me of a non-dualist basis for a straightforward moral system. The dualist basis doesn’t carry over because qualia and sentience don’t carry over. I’ve got a book coming in on consciousness and possibly that bridges the gap. begbert2 and I have been going at it for a while now but I don’t think either of us has made an impression upon the other. ~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, 6:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-defence-of-dualism/832962/162 "2019-04-26T06:47:37Z")
> [@Max\_S](#): > > I’m not sure what the difference between literal and metaphorical mind-body separation might be when the separation is non-falsifiable. Then we do enter the realm of religion, and as Joseph Campbell could had told you, you do get into trouble by ignoring that a lot of it should be seen as a metaphor and not as if it was the literal truth. > [@Max\_S](#): > > And I hate to pull the no-true-Scotsman card, but I have to disavow whatever kind of dualism your cites are talking about. There’s no other response to make unless it’s some sort of quackery-psychiatrist. > > We have already established that “mainstream” dualism is not compatible with the dualism I am defending here. And that does make your peculiar dualism less intuitive and pragmatic, not to mention that now that since it is a very peculiar type of dualism, it follows that this is no longer “playing devil’s advocate”. ---
**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, 6:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-defence-of-dualism/832962/163 "2019-04-26T06:53:10Z")
> [@Max\_S](#): > > But I can sit here and say it’s possible all day long. No-you can say you can imagine it, but you have yet to show that it is possible. ---
**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, 6:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-defence-of-dualism/832962/164 "2019-04-26T06:54:43Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > Uh, feelings come from thinking also. What you post here is not making sense. My post you quoted was about dualism. In dualism the feelings are in the soul because the soul is sentient, not the body. But nevermind that. Would you care to explain feelings without dualism? How do I determine whether or not something can feel? At what point does a machine or animal meet those criteria, or is it a racist distinction? If so how do you actually determine race? What about cyborgs and vegetable states and clones and Versed? I don’t need neural coordinates but I need enough detail to make decisions and to defend myself against stubborn dualists such as Max S… ~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, 7:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-defence-of-dualism/832962/165 "2019-04-26T07:02:05Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > Then we do enter the realm of religion, and as Joseph Campbell could had told you, you do get into trouble by ignoring that a lot of it should be seen as a metaphor and not as if it was the literal truth. > And that does make your peculiar dualism less intuitive and pragmatic, not to mention that now that since it is a very peculiar type of dualism, it follows that this is no longer “playing devil’s advocate”. Religion? Possibly. I’m not sure what you are getting at. It takes a lot of effort to keep backing dualism but it has always been a very peculiar type, even before I started this thread. Every post I want to switch sides and argue against myself, and be correct, and put the issue to rest. Even better, I want to argue against someone else and be correct and put the issue to rest. I don’t like blind faith any more than the next participant. If I had the winning argument for either side I would just post it and move on. ~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, 7:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-defence-of-dualism/832962/166 "2019-04-26T07:16:40Z")
> [@crowmanyclouds](#): > > Why??? > > CMC fnord! It’s been a long thread so I don’t blame you for asking. I forgot to explain myself for a while. ~Max > [@Max\_S](#): > > 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:** ![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, 7:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-defence-of-dualism/832962/167 "2019-04-26T07:31:01Z")
> [@Max\_S](#): > > I disagree with the a core premise of psychiatry, that there exists such a thing as a mental illness that can’t be treated by treating the human body, if only we knew how the body worked. This is despite my support of dualism and I think it is despite my support of talk psychiatry in another thread. > > Psychiatry is heuristic, it is not a precise science. If the mind they are trying to treat is a purely physical brain, then in theory a neurosurgeon could “fix” whatever mental problem comes up. We don’t have the technology or know-how but in theory, it’s all there. So I’ll support this form of psychiatry, but only as long as it is needed. Eventually psychiatry will go the way of alchemy and phrenology and we will all see neurologists for our head problems. Maybe talk psychiatry will stick around because talking is so cheap. And this shows that you did not read the cites, (not the Storm one) that Journal of Psychiatry pointed also at the work of biologists and neurologists taking potshots at dualism. > [@](#): > > Mind/Brain is a product of evolution > > The brain and its sensory organs are adapted to the environment the animal inhabits and implement the behaviors necessary for survival and reproductive success. The evolution of the brain is a demonstration of the conservation of structural and functional features linking the human brain to distant relatives in profound ways. It is difficult to identify an entry point for non-physical entities such as the soul in this continuous chain of evolutionary adaptations. There is a vast literature in this field. We will highlight only some very recent findings that serve as examples of the profound connectedness of neuronal function and the circuitry implementing behaviors throughout evolution. Dopamineis the neurotransmitter involved in the reward circuits [19] from the drosophila nervous system to the human brain [20]. There are converging genetic data pointing to a deep homology of vertebrate basal ganglia and the arthropod central complex, suggesting that the circuits essential for behavioral choices have been conserved through deep evolutionary time [21]. The default mode network in humans, which supports self referential cognitive functions such as recollection, conceptual processing and conscious awareness [22-24], is found both in other primates [25] and in the evolutionarily distant rodent brain [26,27]. The evolutionary roots of consciousness of affective experiences we share with other animals probably involve areas in the upper brainstem [28]. We share highly evolved social cognitions such as empathy with our primate relatives [29]. > [@](#): > > Consciousness is not beyond the scope of science > > Phasic cycling of internally generated activity, accessing first primary sensory but then successively more general and abstract processing units of the homotypical cortex, should allow for continual updating of the perceptual image of self and self-in –the-world as well as matching functions between that perceptual image and impinging external events. This internal readout of internally stored information, and its match with the neural replication of the external continuum, is thought to provide an objective mechanism for conscious awareness. That mechanism is not beyond the reach of scientific inquiry (Mountcastle, 1982). The study of consciousness has long been avoided by neuroscience because of the “mistake of supposing that the subjectivity of consciousness made it beyond the reach of an objective science” [33]. Consciousness emerges as a result of the coordinated activity of brain networks spanning many scales of space and time. These networks have “small world” architecture [34] and enable high efficiency information processing, particularly at higher frequencies [35]. Neuroscience is responding to the challenge of modeling how functionally distinct brain states emerge from interactions of a large number of brain regions, each containing millions of neurons, by rapid, real-time integration without the supervision of an executive controller [36]. These networks, while providing long range connectivity of cortical regions which may facilitate sensory-motor integration, preserve a fractal small world topology which allows for correlated high frequency (gamma band) oscillations. These in turn provide the substrate of temporal binding and permit rapid state- related changes [37]. The function of neural circuits in bringing about mental states is emergent, arising from complex and constantly changing interactions of many neurons [38]. A number of strategies have been used to identify brain states that are required for consciousness. The thalamocortical system plays a critical role in the breakdown and re-emergence of consciousness as shown in studies using anesthesia [39]. The conscious state requires the coupling of subcortical and limbic regions with parts of the frontal and inferior parietal cortex [40]. Loss of consciousness induced by the anesthetic propofol is associated with a rapid change in cortical network dynamics and a resultant decrease of communication between distant cortical areas [41]. The fading of consciousness at the onset of sleep is also associated with a breakdown of connectivity between cortical regions [42]. > [@Max\_S](#): > > If the mind they are dealing with is the soul I’ve been describing here, psychiatrists are chasing a wild goose. They can’t observe the soul because the soul has no causal relationship with the physical world. [Stop saying to the souls what to do.](https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/166505-stop-telling-god-what-to-do-with-his-dice) > [@Max\_S](#): > > If the mind they are dealing with is the soul in mainstream dualism, that is, it is nonphysical but somehow interacts with the physical world, then I dismiss the entire field as quackery. If it interacts with the physical world and we can observe it, it is the physical world and therefore see above. > > ~Max See above, they do. And it is because, well, what you think it is a soul is actually part of the physical world. ---
**Author:** ![Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/half_man_half_wit/32/21766_2.png) [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Half_Man_Half_Wit)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2019, 7:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-defence-of-dualism/832962/168 "2019-04-26T07:37:41Z")
> [@Max\_S](#): > > When a physicalist acts in such a way he ceases to be a physicalist. The higher power and objective moral laws would fit into dualism, not any sort of physicalism I am aware of. As he does when accepting dualism. My question wasn’t regarding how a physicalist could accept an objective morality\*, but why you argue for dualism rather than objective moral laws, a higher power, or the like as a source of moral imperatives. \*Not to open up yet another thread of argumentation, but at least parenthetically, I don’t think that’s such a hard thing to do. Laws describe rules of causality, how certain things happen; physical laws describe physical causality, but causality comes in different forms. The behavior of stones and elementary particles is saliently different from that of living objects, which again differs from that of conscious entities. (That’s why we make distinctions between these things.) Conscious entities, in particular, consider future events in shaping their actions; stones don’t. At least in an effective sense, we thus need different laws to describe causality for conscious entities; but these are just the moral laws: we act a certain way because it is good, for instance. This is fully compatible with physicalism: while one can reduce these to physical causality at least in an abstract sense, reduction isn’t elimination. My left arm isn’t any less real because I can reduce it to an assemblage of bones and muscles, and those to cells, and those again to atoms. This also doesn’t collapse to moral relativism, because we aren’t free to alter the laws that govern our behavior in every way we please. However, it does mean that there is some leeway: these laws apply rather on a population-wide level, and thus, there is an intelligible sense in which the individual may violate them. ---
**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, 8:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-defence-of-dualism/832962/169 "2019-04-26T08:07:41Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > And this shows that you did not read the cites, (not the Storm one) that Journal of Psychiatry pointed also at the work of biologists and neurologists taking potshots at dualism. I did read the cites before responding although I did not watch the video. I’m not sure why you disagree with me. I stand by my statements you quoted and fail to see an inconsistency between what I said before, what I said that you quoted, and what I am saying now. If physicalism is true, there is no mind-body dualism. In this case there is no mind for psychiatrists to study. Psychiatry is as mere heuristic until the real sciences of neurology (and biology, I missed that) are worked out. It might stick around, but it is not and never will be an exact science. If there is mind-body dualism in the form of epiphenomenalism, as I have defended in this thread, it is still impossible for psychiatrists to observe the nonphysical mind. This is because this form of mind-body dualism notably says the non-physical has no causal interactions with physical reality. If there are no causal interactions from mental to physical then there is nothing for a psychologist to observe except, of course, the physical world. See above for that. If there is mind-body dualism in a form other than epiphenomenalism, well, there isn’t. If the mind can cause physical changes then it really isn’t non-physical to begin with, is it? At which point we have but a physical world for psychiatrists to diagnose and treat what are actually neurological issues. See two paragraphs above. [quote=“GIGObuster, post:167, topic:832962”] [Stop saying to the souls what to do.](https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/166505-stop-telling-god-what-to-do-with-his-dice) I don’t know how the spiritual world works but I still need a system of morals! Right? > [@GIGObuster](#): > > See above, they do. And it is because, well, what you think it is a soul is actually part of the physical world. ~Max ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2019, 8:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-defence-of-dualism/832962/170 "2019-04-26T08:08:27Z")
> [@Max\_S](#): > > you said there might be a problem if you try and withdraw consent during the operation. Could you elaborate on that? It’s exactly the same as the idea that in a sexual encounter you can, \*at \*\*any \*_time_, withdraw consent and it would be immoral for your partner(s) to continue. The only caveat would be if it were considered by the physician that it would be life-threatening to stop the procedure once it were underway (note: not “more work” or “slightly more dangerous” or “a shame to turn back now” or anything like that). Then their immediate duty of care should possibly come first. You have a right to suicide, but not to force others to do it for you. This thread has moved very fast since yesterday, I need to catch up… ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2019, 8:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-defence-of-dualism/832962/171 "2019-04-26T08:12:04Z")
> [@Max\_S](#): > > The brain doesn’t feel pain, it reacts to painful stimuli. This sentence is incoherent. ---
**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, 8:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-defence-of-dualism/832962/172 "2019-04-26T08:34:19Z")
> [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#): > > As he does when accepting dualism. My question wasn’t regarding how a physicalist could accept an objective morality\*, but why you argue for dualism rather than objective moral laws, a higher power, or the like as a source of moral imperatives. > > \*Not to open up yet another thread of argumentation, but at least parenthetically, I don’t think that’s such a hard thing to do. Laws describe rules of causality, how certain things happen; physical laws describe physical causality, but causality comes in different forms. The behavior of stones and elementary particles is saliently different from that of living objects, which again differs from that of conscious entities. (That’s why we make distinctions between these things.) Conscious entities, in particular, consider future events in shaping their actions; stones don’t. At least in an effective sense, we thus need different laws to describe causality for conscious entities; but these are just the moral laws: we act a certain way because it is good, for instance. > > This is fully compatible with physicalism: while one can reduce these to physical causality at least in an abstract sense, reduction isn’t elimination. My left arm isn’t any less real because I can reduce it to an assemblage of bones and muscles, and those to cells, and those again to atoms. > > This also doesn’t collapse to moral relativism, because we aren’t free to alter the laws that govern our behavior in every way we please. However, it does mean that there is some leeway: these laws apply rather on a population-wide level, and thus, there is an intelligible sense in which the individual may violate them. I come from a position where I have observed moral relativity. Sometimes directly, sometimes only second-hand. People do all sorts of crazy stuff. That is my true position, borne out by experience, not the devil’s. To say there were some objective moral law is a risky position, at least it is if you want to stay consistent with reductive physicalism. In that philosophy a law is a law, not a mere suggestion. A single counterexample disproves the law. My intuition is this: if you defined an objective moral law of any meaning, I could just as easily go and prove you wrong. Not that I want to break a reasonable moral rule, but either I could do it or there’s no use wasting the paper. Similarly the physicalist in me responds to claims of a higher power by asking, “if you could sir, please point this higher power out? I would very much like to go observe such a thing.” If it’s physicalism, a physical entity is observable or it doesn’t exist. There has to be physical evidence… somewhere. Is it a man sitting on a cloud? On the moon? What does he do, exactly? How does he do it? With dualism you have an entire realm of existence which is affected by the physical world but never talks back. It is easy enough to throw the higher power or moral laws in there, so long as his powers are limited to the non-physical realm. I don’t advocate for a physics of the non-physical realm so you can put anything in there. It makes for quite the philosopher’s playground. ~Max ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2019, 8:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-defence-of-dualism/832962/173 "2019-04-26T08:37:11Z")
> [@Max\_S](#): > > without qualia there is no sentience Who said this? Certainly not me (the one who raised the nonexistence of qualia in this thread), there definitely is sentience. \*Animals \*have sentience. Does this mean in your NeoDualism, since sentience is something only souls can have, animals also have equivalent soul parasites? If not, why not? If “some do” -where do you draw the arbitrary line? Do chimps have souls? If yes - are “our” soul parasites judged on how we act to animals? Do their souls vote in the same Soul Assembly? I feel they’d rather outnumber us by orders of magnitude, and we don’t collectively come off very well… basically we’re all be fucked, judgement-wise. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2019, 8:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-defence-of-dualism/832962/174 "2019-04-26T08:38:19Z")
> [@Max\_S](#): > > I was shot down and told to read “Consciousness Explained” before I had any basis to criticise physicalism. No-one said this. \*You \*claimed physicalists didn’t explain consciousness, I pointed out they did. Dennett isn’t the only one, either, his book title is just so apropos. ---
**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, 9:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-defence-of-dualism/832962/175 "2019-04-26T09:00:39Z")
> [@Max\_S](#): > > I can test if something is self or non-self by applying stimuli and observing whether that produces the expected qualia. I’m not quite sure myself and that definition is probably flawed, but it is a definition. Note to Max S.: your physical brain cannot observe qualia, stupid. ~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, 9:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-defence-of-dualism/832962/176 "2019-04-26T09:02:24Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > It’s exactly the same as the idea that in a sexual encounter you can, \*at \*\*any \*_time_, withdraw consent and it would be immoral for your partner(s) to continue. > > The only caveat would be if it were considered by the physician that it would be life-threatening to stop the procedure once it were underway (note: not “more work” or “slightly more dangerous” or “a shame to turn back now” or anything like that). Then their immediate duty of care should possibly come first. You have a right to suicide, but not to force others to do it for you. OK. I don’t think consensual sex is comparable unless you consented to taking the drug before sex. Let’s say it is not only Versed, but a drug cocktail that also paralyzes you so there’s no kicking and screaming and the endoscope gets a clear image. Are you still aware and feeling pain during the operation? You cannot communicate with the doctors and you won’t remember a thing when it’s over. Therefore you physically cannot withdraw consent. Is the operation still moral? > [@MrDibble](#): > > This thread has moved very fast since yesterday, I need to catch up… Haha yeah it has, hasn’t it… I should be getting to sleep now… ~Max ---
**Author:** ![Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/half_man_half_wit/32/21766_2.png) [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Half_Man_Half_Wit)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2019, 10:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-defence-of-dualism/832962/177 "2019-04-26T10:17:13Z")
> [@Max\_S](#): > > I come from a position where I have observed moral relativity. Sometimes directly, sometimes only second-hand. People do all sorts of crazy stuff. That is my true position, borne out by experience, not the devil’s. I’m not sure what you mean by this. Do you mean you’ve observed immoral behavior? Because ‘observing moral relativity’, however it might work, would entail somehow observing that the notion of what’s good and what one ought do are not fixed, in which case, objective morality would be trivially falsified. > [@](#): > > To say there were some objective moral law is a risky position, at least it is if you want to stay consistent with reductive physicalism. In that philosophy a law is a law, not a mere suggestion. A single counterexample disproves the law. That’s not right. The second law of thermodynamics is statistical, and violations have been observed; this doesn’t entail it’s not a law. More to the point, though, moral laws are normative, not prescriptive; they tell us how we ought act, but they don’t force us to act in that way. If not doing x is good, and somebody does x, that doesn’t mean they’ve broken a moral law, they’ve merely acted immorally. > [@](#): > > My intuition is this: if you defined an objective moral law of any meaning, I could just as easily go and prove you wrong. Not that I want to break a reasonable moral rule, but either I could do it or there’s no use wasting the paper. Merely failing to act in accordance with a moral law doesn’t prove it wrong. Moral laws are not of the form ‘under conditions x, entity y will do z’, but rather, ‘under conditions x, entity y ought to do z’. This law isn’t broken by not acting as x ought to. The physicalist already accepts a set of brute facts that are true about the world—the physical laws. All that needs to be added is another set of brute facts: the moral laws. David Chalmers, in his ‘Constructing the World’, attempts to construct a minimum set of such facts from which everything else can be derived; IIRC, he comes up with 1. the physical facts, 2. the experiential/phenomenal facts, 3. indexical facts (things like ‘you are here’), and 4. (possibly) a ‘that’s all’-fact that states that the aforementioned are all there is. One could just add 5. moral facts to that list. (The physicalist, of course, will deny that 2.-5. are facts in addition to and above the physical facts, but this is ultimately a matter of taste—it’s not immediately clear that one set of brute facts is preferable over another, even if it’s smaller.) ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2019, 10:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-defence-of-dualism/832962/178 "2019-04-26T10:53:10Z")
> [@Max\_S](#): > > The claims that Santa Claus affects the physical world disqualify him from being a soul in my form of Dualism. But the point was that Santa Claus can induce positive behavior. No. The \*idea \*of Santa Claus induces positive behaviour. Santa Claus does not have to exist (anywhere, including nonphysical Soul [del]Society[/del] Assembly) for this to be true. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2019, 10:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-defence-of-dualism/832962/179 "2019-04-26T10:59:17Z")
> [@Max\_S](#): > > OK. I don’t think consensual sex is comparable unless you consented to taking the drug before sex. Do you understand how analogies work? There doesn’t have to be a one-to-one correspondence. What is pertinent is that there was consent for something, and that consent was then withdrawn. That there’s some later effect isn’t relevant - giving the non-consenting sex partner a memory wipe in the future doesn’t magically render them consenting at the time, ditto for the operation. > [@](#): > > Let’s say it is not only Versed, but a drug cocktail that also paralyzes you so there’s no kicking and screaming and the endoscope gets a clear image. Are you still aware and feeling pain during the operation? You cannot communicate with the doctors and you won’t remember a thing when it’s over. Therefore you physically cannot withdraw consent. Is the operation still moral? If I \*knowingly \*consented to place myself in a position where I cannot withdraw consent, then it’s entirely on me. Of course i might still be feeling pain, but as far as the doctor is concerned, I’m clearly OK with that pain. It’s when the withdrawal of consent \*is \*communicated that I’m concerned. ---
**Author:** ![CurtC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ce73a5/32.png) [@CurtC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CurtC)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2019, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-defence-of-dualism/832962/180 "2019-04-26T14:18:20Z")
> [@Max\_S](#): > > 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. I like to back things up to find the exact point where we go from agreeing on some basics, to where we diverge and disagree. I think I found it right here. Let’s number these steps of yours: 1. In a physical-only world, there can be no qualia. 2. Without qualia, there is no sentience. 3. Without sentience, there is no harm or pleasure. 4. Without harm or pleasure, there is no morality. I think we would all agree on 3 and 4. For point number 2, I thought qualia and sentience were two ways of describing the same thing - our sentience is our ability to experience, and those experiences are called the vague word “qualia.” Maybe I misunderstand how you use the word “qualia,” but in any case #2 seems not worth fussing with. It’s point #1 where we really see things differently. In a physicalist-only world, we still have sentience and we still experience things (qualia). Why do you think we wouldn’t? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-defence-of-dualism/832962.md?page=8) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-defence-of-dualism/832962.md?page=10)