Saturday, January 7, 2012
Dualism at Massimo's Place
I have violated my (somewhat malleable) principle of not commenting on other blogs, by placing two comments on Massimo Pigliucci's blog article regarding physicalism vs. dualism. I really didn't expect them to see daylight (Massimo has 86'd some of the other comments I have attempted there), but he has allowed them this time. Since they go counter to the standard Atheist anti-dualism position, they might generate some interesting reading.
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1.We do have a sense of meaning.
2.Senses come from reality, albeit they are only perspectives of it.
3.Meaning comes from reality.
Naturalism says that all meaning is subjective, and in a way illusury because it really does not exist in an absolute sense like reality does. but this in itself is an absolute meaning so the position is contradictory.
Does meaning exist absolutly in a natural sense? Then what is its medium? Nuerological network activity. but this makes it that the sense of meaning is the only sense that derives its source from the non physical. Unlike feeling which activates from texture reactions chemically. Unlike sight which activates with the receprion of photons. Unlike smell with which small particles are detected and identified in the air. Unlike Hearing in which there is an occilating density air wave that we can interpret. The sense of meaning comes from the non-material just like our other senses(processes are non-material) but its sourse is not just in interpreting these senses, but also the interpretation of the interpretation. It works with syntax which is not intrinsic to physics(symbols, things that only exist as mathemetics does) . A reality not intrinsic to physics, like mathematics, is very much the dualist existence in itself. It is what makes us greater than the sum of our physical parts as naturalism requires. Existing in this reality of syntax/meaning which is not intrinsic to physics just as the aboslute existence of mathematics is may be the substrate of the soul and free will, I do not know.
Is not mathematics part of Physics? Particles and waves act in accordance to principles, but what is the existence of these principles? whatever its source, it is the same as the source of meaning.
Thoughts?
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