In
a much earlier post, I stated that when it comes to arguing against the fact
that the mind is a product of the brain, there is basically only one rebuttal
that proponents of dualism use.1 The argument is that even though
there appears to be a perfect causal relationship between mind and brain, it’s simply a
correlation, and nothing more. The reality of the situation, dualists argue, is
that the mind is related to the brain like a radio wave is related to a radio.
When you twiddle with knobs on a radio, it changes what you hear, and if you
were to damage the radio, what you would hear would be distorted—but none of
this has any effect on the radio wave itself. Or to use another analogy, say
you are driving a car, and your axel breaks, causing the car to swerve all over
the road. Just because the car can’t drive properly, we shouldn’t then conclude
that there is something wrong with the driver. Likewise, if you damage the
brain, you aren’t damaging the mind, just the ability for the brain to properly
carry out the desires of the mind.
These analogies
are very clever, and sound superficially plausible. But what does it imply
when you use those analogies to explain the mind/brain relationship? Obviously,
it means that even though the brain is changed, the mind is totally fine. According
to dualism, a change to the physical brain will change the external output that
the mind creates, but the mind itself is completely intact. How anyone can
seriously argue for this boggles my mind (which also shouldn't happen, since my mind shouldn't be able to be affected by anything).
Most of us have
been under the influence of some sort of substance that changes our mental experience.
For example, most of us have been drunk, been under general anesthesia, or
something similar. Now, when you are drunk, the alcohol is having a physical
effect on your physical brain. As a result, your mental experience is changed.
It’s not that your body just won’t respond to how your mind wants it to—it’s
not that your mind is completely clear, but the alcohol is preventing you from
getting the words out. No, the physical changes to your brain have a direct and
profound effect on your mind—something that is metaphysically impossible if
dualism is true.2 If dualism were true, we would expect any sort of mind
altering substance3 to create a “locked in” sort of
effect where the patient is completely conscious and lucid, but cannot get
their body to do what their mind wants.
Now, if you
haven’t ever been drunk, taken drugs, been under local anesthesia, etc, watch this video of a
girl who has just woken up from getting her wisdom teeth removed. Is this girl
behaving in a way that you would expect if her mind was perfectly
unaltered? Do you really think that her thoughts are just as clear as always,
but her brain is preventing her from speaking coherently? Of course not.
Another neat
example is from people who suffer from Capgras Delusion. These
unlucky folks have suffered brain damage in a way that the “wires” that connect
the part of the brain that processes emotion to the part of the brain that
processes vision have been cut. When the patient sees something that normally
would elicit an emotional response (such as a loved one), the emotions don’t
show up. The brain doesn’t know what to do with this bizarre experience, and
comes to the conclusion that the loved one is
an imposter! “That looks like my wife, sounds like my wife, but it is NOT
my wife.” It’s truly fascinating.
Now, are we to
actually believe that the person is thinking “THAT IS MY WIFE!!!!!” but when
they try to say the words, some part of their brain is preventing them from
saying it, writing it, etc? It would be like on Liar Liar when Jim
Carrey is trying to say that a blue pen is actually red, but is physically
incapable of it, even though he can think it. Absurdity.
Now, all this
talk on the mind and brain can get complicated, and some people might just tend to
think “I don’t even care. It’s all really complex, and I don’t understand the
arguments well enough to know what to think about it.” Fair enough. So let me
present the exact same argument dualists use, but with using something other
than the mind/brain. This way, you just see just how silly the dualist position
is.
Instead of the
mind/brain, let’s say the argument was in regards to muscles. Let’s propose
that there are two aspects to your muscle: the physical (called the muscle) and
the immaterial (called the musoul). Now, whenever you use a muscle, you
actually are using the musoul, via the muscle. Just like the brain supposedly works
via the immaterial mind/soul, the muscle works via the musoul. It’s not the
muscle that gives you strength to lift heavy things, it’s the musoul. Now, you
might say “That’s absurd. The more you work out, the bigger your muscle gets,
and the stronger you become. Or, if you were to get in an accident, and you
lost a bunch of muscle, you would lose strength in that part of your body.”
But au
contraire! Like the neuroscientists and philosophers who insist that the mind
is a result of the brain, you are just presuming materialism—assuming that
there is no immaterial aspect to muscles. In reality, all these facts are
completely consistent with the idea of a musoul, and you are just mistaking
correlation for causation.
You see, the
more you work out your muscle, the bigger it gets. However, it’s just like if
you had a bigger antenna for your radio you would get a stronger signal. So the
bigger your muscle is, the more you are able to receive strength from the
musoul. And when the muscle is destroyed or damaged in an accident, it’s just
like damaging or destroying the antennae on a radio. You are no longer able to
access the musoul, and therefore, you have no strength.
Of course, this
muscle/musoul argument is absurd. The probable response to my argument would be
“yeah, but mind and consciousness require some sort of non-physical explanation.
The nature of mind is much different than the nature of strength.” However,
that completely begs the question. Yes, the nature of consciousness is
mysterious and unknown… but the little insight we do have strongly suggests
it’s the result of a physical brain.
So, if you are
sympathetic to dualist views, you have to not only account for the arguments I already
laid out, but also account for why you aren’t a dualist in regards to muscles
and strength. If immaterial entities that are as complex as the mind exist, isn’t
it likely that immaterial entities could also exist that do simple things, like
give muscles their strength?
1. There are a few other arguments that dualists use, but they are astonishingly incompatible
with any sort of modern understanding of neuroscience. Unfortunately, this
doesn’t stop some people from using them.
2. It’s also metaphysically
impossible for an immaterial mind to have any effect on a physical brain,
and this has been a HUGE problem for dualists for the last 400 years. To
quote John Searle, “No
dualist has ever been able to give an account of how a brain can affect a
mind, or how a mind can affect a brain. Dualism, for most philosophers
today, is not a real option.”
3. We would also call these things brain altering
substances, not MIND altering—but this is a very immaterial point (heh).
