Essay about Why Dualism is Rejected by Science

In essence, Cartesian Dualism attempts to solve the mind-body problem – that is, what is the relationship between the mind and the body? The answer, according to this theory, is that the mind and the body are two distinctly different substances that constitute each person. Here, “mind” can be described as a nonphysical thing that thinks and “body” as a living physical thing that does not think. The mind can also exist independently of the body, and both can causally affect one another.

A third argument for dualism is paranormal phenomena. Mental powers such as telepathy, precognition, telekinesis, and clairvoyance are all near impossible to explain within the boundaries of the physical brain. These phenomena reflect the nonphysical and supernatural nature

Matter is often defined as mass that can be physically observed by the senses, it can be measured scientifically and is tangible , it could be said the material world unlike aspects of social worlds is less abstract and easier to define, for example a building which comprises of bricks, wood, metal and other materials built into a specific shape compared to a community which can relate to people of the same place or shared values or interests or all. That is not to say that matter just is, it too can have agency and varying meanings dependent upon the

A materialist believes everything has a foundation in matter, and therefore humans see objects as they are. In the first dialogue between Philonous and Hylas, they discuss their understanding of the senses as related to matter. More specifically, they are in a debate about whether the senses are a necessary part of matter. Hylas believes matter is a substance that exists without someone needing to perceive it. Philonous believes matter cannot exist without someone having some mental understanding of it, and in the event that no physical being is present to perceive

The defense of dualism stems from two questions. First, is a human being composed of just one ultimate component or two? The second asks if the answer is two, how do these two relate to one another? This idea starts Moreland argument for dualism over physicalism. Physicalism is a worldview that states that

The ontological essence of each thing consists in its relations to all other things, thus nothing exists unless everything it is related to exists as well. External reality is the way God created the earth to work in uniformity and the earth was made out of nothing (Sire, 2009). In a scientism view it was the art of science that started the universe. Chemical reactions within the world is what started life in earth.

Thesis: The mind-body problem arises because of the lack of evidence when looking for a specific explanation of the interaction of mental and physical states, and the origin and even existence of them.

The ideas of materialism began to take root in eighteenth century France. The name alludes to its ideologies; a materialist is an atheist, who believes that the universe is made simply of matter with no spiritual aspect. This theory carries with it extreme conclusions, the most radical, being that humans have no free will and are urged to act based on their chemical reactions and environment alone. Furthermore, a materialist would argue that because of this lack of free will, we can't hold humans morally responsible for their actions.

Physicalism is the thesis that everything is physical, or at any rate everything is necessitated by or supervenes on the physical. In contemporary philosophy , physicalism is most frequently associated with the mind-body problem in philosophy of mind , regarding which physicalism holds that all that has been ascribed to "mind" is more correctly ascribed to "brain" or the activity of the brain. The mind-body problem is the problem of explaining how our mental states, events and processes—like beliefs, actions and thinking—are related to the physical states, events and processes in our bodies. A long tradition in philosophy has held, with René Descartes, that the mind must be a non-bodily entity: a soul or mental substance. This thesis is called ‘substance dualism’ (or ‘Cartesian dualism’) because it says that there are two kinds of substance in the world, mental and physical or material. The philosophical rival of dualists have been the philosophical doctrine of monism. Monism denies that minds and their bodies are distinct substances. Monists assert that substances are all of one kind. They could say that all substances are mental (idealism); or they could say that all substances are material (materialism). In contemporary philosophy however there are not many philosophers who assert all things are mental hence the dualism, monism controversy has become more a controversy between dualism and materialism or what is more properly physicalism. The terms physicalism and

The three responses to this longstanding issue in western philosophy include materialism, dualism and idealism. Materialism can be defined simply as the only things there are all material or physical things. Idealists believe that there are no material things; there are only minds, and thoughts and experiences. While dualists think that the mental and physical are deeply different in kind: thus the mental is at least not identical with the physical.

The mind-body problem is an age-old topic in philosophy that questions the relationship between the mental aspect of life, such as the field of beliefs, pains, and emotions, and the physical side of life which deals with matter, atoms, and neurons. There are four concepts that each argue their respective sides. For example, Physicalism is the belief that humans only have a physical brain along with other physical structures, whereas Idealism argues that everything is mind-based. Furthermore, Materialism argues that the whole universe is purely physical. However, the strongest case that answers the commonly asked questions such as “Does the mind exist?” and “Is the mind your brain?” is Dualism.

What can roughly be seen as a more radical approach to reductionism, eliminative materialism asserts that not only is physical matter the only constituent of everything that exists, but that the laymen's terms of describing mental states, referred to folk psychology, is completely false and is in no way an effective or accurate method to describe mental states, including one’s own mental faculties and consciousness. Seeking to completely replace folk psychology with purely empirical neuroscientific evidence and language, eliminative materialism remains a more reformist and radical kind of materialism, going as far as to surmise that some mental states, such as love, desire, and belief, do not even exist, and that they can only be understood by how closely they relate to biological and physical processes. With her philosophies constituting a blurry amalgamation of eliminative materialism and reductionism, Patricia Churchland seeks to explain human consciousness by employing a reductionist research strategy, a strategy that attempts to explain consciousness and poorly understood mental faculties entirely through neurobiological

Anomalous monism is a theory that attempts to explain the mind – body dualist view. Donald Davidson coined the term and is the most notable contributor behind its inception. The theory has two major points that it addresses. Firstly that mental events and interactions produce physical events. Secondly, that mental events do not abide by physical laws or guidelines. We will look at Davidson’s theory in detail as well as explore his defensive arguments throughout the course of this paper.

     One type of monism is neutral monism. Neutral monism concludes that neither mental nor physical properties are attributed to reality but rather a substance called neutral stuff (Encyclopedia of Philosophy-Monism). Traditional materialism in monism proposes all things are part of the physical and the mental, the body and the mind (Encyclopedia of Philosophy-Monism). This means that a person’s mind works with their body through a simultaneous connection.

Materialism is, “the view that matter is the ultimate constituent of reality” (Velasquez 148). In other words Materialism says that only material things are real. Nothing else exists but matter; there is no spiritual aspect in life. The only thing that matters are things we can see and feel. Charvaka philosophers that believed in Materialism argued that, “Because all we know is what we can perceive with our senses, and because whatever we perceive with our senses is physical and material, it follows that all we can know is the material of physical world around us” (Velasquez 149). They say that if we cannot see it or we do not know that it exists then it must be wrong. If we cannot physically use our senses to acknowledge it then things like souls, gods, or other spiritual “realities “can’t be real.