3 ms·

Belief in mind-body dualism strikes me as the only reason to reject the possibility that seemingly external and inanimate physical processes and human conscious

Belief in mind-body dualism strikes me as the only reason to reject the possibility that seemingly external and inanimate physical processes and human consciousness are fundamentally the same. If you worry that suspending this belief would rob humans of consciousness (free will, etc.) and “lower” them to the level of “things”, note that you can instead “lift” those externals by granting them the relevant qualities, just expressed at sufficiently different/foreign scales so that human mind is unable to easily grasp the equivalence within its framework of perceived space-time.

plutonorm 4y ago
agree - there is so much ego around when things like this are discussed. It is very frustrating.
- strogonoff 4y ago
  I mean, this ego might be warranted to some degree. At least (and I don’t know if you would call this an ego-driven argument), consciousness is something I can be sure definitely exists, considering that anything one could call “reality” is only accessible via consciousness (and obviously tainted and possibly constructed to an unknowable extent by it). So, I understand the reluctance to accept a philosophical position that downgrades consciousness to something illusory, as physicalist positions tend to. (If that’s what the comment I responded to expressed, then I’m the same in that regard.) I just think that it’s easy to miss the availability of non-dualist takes that don’t require such a downgrade, and unless I missed something (am yet to read it carefully) this article doesn’t seem to require it either, which would be refreshing.
  - plutonorm 4y ago
    I was agreeing with you.
sgt101 4y ago
I can think of other reasons. - moral: equating inanimate processes and living processes means that you equate their same moral status. - rationality : conscious processes behave differently in that they anticipate conditions and the behaviour of other processes. For example trees (at the bottom end of a scale of awareness) shed their leaves in the autumn in anticipation of frosts to come. The weather does not adapt to trees. - utilitarian: physical processes don't remember you, humans will. If you strike an inanimate process, or burn it, or electrocute it and then return to it weeks later do not fear. If you do the same to a human, or a dog, or an elephant, I advise you to be cautious.
- strogonoff 4y ago
  I assume then your answer to my veiled question is yes, you do subscribe to mind-body dualism. Again, if I equate moral status of human consciousness to that of inanimate things, it does not need to mean I am downgrading the former as opposed to upgrading the latter. I don’t really accept physicalism myself (but neither I do dualism). I also think you have missed the part regarding wildly different or simply foreign scales. Weather adapting to trees may just be like you adapting to an earthworm while driving a car. Striking a stone, no more than a fly briefly landing on you. Bad analogies but I can’t think of a better one in the moment. I suggest not to take it literally (stones are living, hahah) but analyze it philosophically. To a degree this may require accepting that the model of reality and three-dimensional space/time accessible to human mind may always be fragmentary and incomplete, optimized towards fitness and survival at human timescales.

plutonorm 4y ago

agree - there is so much ego around when things like this are discussed. It is very frustrating.

strogonoff 4y ago
I mean, this ego might be warranted to some degree. At least (and I don’t know if you would call this an ego-driven argument), consciousness is something I can be sure definitely exists, considering that anything one could call “reality” is only accessible via consciousness (and obviously tainted and possibly constructed to an unknowable extent by it). So, I understand the reluctance to accept a philosophical position that downgrades consciousness to something illusory, as physicalist positions tend to. (If that’s what the comment I responded to expressed, then I’m the same in that regard.) I just think that it’s easy to miss the availability of non-dualist takes that don’t require such a downgrade, and unless I missed something (am yet to read it carefully) this article doesn’t seem to require it either, which would be refreshing.
- plutonorm 4y ago
  I was agreeing with you.

sgt101 4y ago

I can think of other reasons. - moral: equating inanimate processes and living processes means that you equate their same moral status. - rationality : conscious processes behave differently in that they anticipate conditions and the behaviour of other processes. For example trees (at the bottom end of a scale of awareness) shed their leaves in the autumn in anticipation of frosts to come. The weather does not adapt to trees. - utilitarian: physical processes don't remember you, humans will. If you strike an inanimate process, or burn it, or electrocute it and then return to it weeks later do not fear. If you do the same to a human, or a dog, or an elephant, I advise you to be cautious.

strogonoff 4y ago
I assume then your answer to my veiled question is yes, you do subscribe to mind-body dualism. Again, if I equate moral status of human consciousness to that of inanimate things, it does not need to mean I am downgrading the former as opposed to upgrading the latter. I don’t really accept physicalism myself (but neither I do dualism). I also think you have missed the part regarding wildly different or simply foreign scales. Weather adapting to trees may just be like you adapting to an earthworm while driving a car. Striking a stone, no more than a fly briefly landing on you. Bad analogies but I can’t think of a better one in the moment. I suggest not to take it literally (stones are living, hahah) but analyze it philosophically. To a degree this may require accepting that the model of reality and three-dimensional space/time accessible to human mind may always be fragmentary and incomplete, optimized towards fitness and survival at human timescales.