ethereal wrote:

To what extent is neutral monism distinct from property dualism?

Avery Burke wrote:

If behaviorism is such a broad category what explanatory power do we get from discussing weather an instance of this category can apply to Dennett's stance? Besides refuting his augment on the basis of his (supposed) alliance to a school of thought is a variation of the fallacy Ad Hominem. So, be a true philosopher and look at the augment part for part then cast judgment; even if the argument is wrong there may be some very valuable parts of the argument. Don't be dogmatic.

This is a more precise account of the fallacy Ad Hominem. I know you've taken some philosophy (probably much more than I) and are reasonable; so act that way.

Actually its a mix of positivism and some elements of behaviorism. But why is this wrong? Even if both of those approaches have been over turned that doesn't discount the argument at hand.
On the point of speaking of mental states as useful fiction: I can very easily make the claim that wile mental states exist we cannot verify their character or lean anything useful from them; so, since we can never know about such states, when we speak of them we understand that our characterizations of such states are fiction to help us with our overall theory (like imaginary numbers to number theory). I am not saying that I hold this belief; I am simply asserting that one can be made. This account does not seem to discount mental states; it simply says that our characterization of such states are fictions. This, I think, is what Wittgenstein (and therefore Dennett since he aligns himself with Wittgenstein) was getting at. This theory does not discount mental states only our ability to explain them and gain knowledge from an examination of them.

Death Monkey wrote:

the physical properties of objects you are looking at are not equivalent to the properties of the image in your mind.

Death Monkey wrote:

But if you don't a-priori assume dualism, where is the contradiction? What possible logical justification can there be for claiming that dualism must be true?

Death Monkey wrote:

The color we see in our mind is a property of the process of visually perceiving certain wavelengths of light. In other words, counter-intuitive as it may be, colors are not properties of objects, they are properties of visual perception

Death Monkey wrote:

In what way is it not a physical event? What are its non-physical characteristics

Death Monkey wrote:

Close. The key is to distinguish between the experience of seeing blue, and the physical properties that cause certain objects to look blue.

death monkey wrote:

Or we could recognize that pain is an experience, not a thing. The experience of feeling pain is a process, not a thing "out there" which we perceive.

death monkey wrote:

TecnoTut's claim that experiences cannot be brain processes because they have different properties. Claiming that the properties of experiences (being mental properties) are properties of brain processes, hardly supports this claim.

TecnoTut wrote:
Calling dualism "dead" and the Cartesian Theatre "shallow" is not philosophy. You need arguments, not negative characterizations. The fact of the matter is that most professional philosophers today are "property dualists", a.k.a., non-reductive materialists. Property dualism is simply the compromise between substantive dualism as one extreme and eliminativism as another extreme. Contra substantive dualism, property dualism holds that mental states cannot exist separately from the physical processes that cause them -- and that mental properties are mental attributes of brains, not minds. Furthermore, there can be no mental change without a physical change, but there can be a physical change without a mental change; thus, the same mental state may be instantiated by different physical states but different mental states cannot be instantiated by the same physical states -- this allows for multiple realization and token physicalism (but not type physicalism). Unlike reductive materialism and eliminativism, however, property dualism holds that mental properties do in fact exist and are distinct from the physical properties that cause them because of Leibniz's Laws.

Avery Burke wrote:
Actually its a mix of positivism and some elements of behaviorism. But why is this wrong? Even if both of those approaches have been over turned that doesn't discount the argument at hand.
On the point of speaking of mental states as useful fiction: I can very easily make the claim that wile mental states exist we cannot verify their character or lean anything useful from them; so, since we can never know about such states, when we speak of them we understand that our characterizations of such states are fiction to help us with our overall theory (like imaginary numbers to number theory). I am not saying that I hold this belief; I am simply asserting that one can be made. This account does not seem to discount mental states; it simply says that our characterization of such states are fictions. This, I think, is what Wittgenstein (and therefore Dennett since he aligns himself with Wittgenstein) was getting at. This theory does not discount mental states only our ability to explain them and gain knowledge from an examination of them.

geoff23 wrote:
DM
If it is a non-physical property then it isn't anywhere and it isn't made of anything. If it had attributes like physical location or if it was "made of something" then it wouldn't be a non-physical property.
Geoff.

probeman wrote:
And as Dennett points out- this belief completely insulates oneself from a scientific examination of the mind.