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Article 7030 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: exukjb@exu.ericsson.se (ken bell)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy,sci.physics
Subject: Re: Neo-dualism?
Message-ID: <exukjb.234.717350299@exu.ericsson.se>
Date: 24 Sep 92 15:58:19 GMT
References: <1992Sep23.122527.8484@cs.ucf.edu> <1992Sep24.050409.6402@nuscc.nus.sg>
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In article <1992Sep24.050409.6402@nuscc.nus.sg> matmcinn@nuscc.nus.sg (Mcinnes B T (Dr)) writes:
>From: matmcinn@nuscc.nus.sg (Mcinnes B T (Dr))
>Subject: Re: Neo-dualism?
>Date: 24 Sep 92 05:04:09 GMT

>clarke@acme.ucf.edu (Thomas Clarke) writes:
>: I came across the following passage in Dennett's _Consciousness
>: Explained_.  After reading it I was ready to try to start a new
>: school, neo-dualism, based on Bell/EPR quantum correlations.
>: 
>: (Dennett, op cit, page 35)
>: Since we don't have the faintest idea (yet) what properties
>: mind stuff has, we can't guess (yet) how it might be affected by
>: physical processes emanating somehow from the brain, so let's
>: ignore those upbound signals for the time being, and concentrate
>: on the return signals, the directives from mind to brain.  These,
>: ex hypothesi, are not physical; they are not light waves or sound
>: waves or cosmic rays or streams of subatomic particles.  No physical
>: energy or mass is associated with them.
>: 
>: Now this should ring a bell with anyone who has been following the
>: work in physics on Bell's inequality and quantum correlations.
>: In this work experiments are set up in which correlations are observed
>: between distant events which involve "no light waves, sound waves, 
>: cosmic rays, or streams of subatomic particles".   These correlations
>: are real, they have been observed.  
>: 
>: The physical catch is that no information can be transmitted via these
>: correlations.  Nevertheless, it would seem that one could do establish
>: a dualistic position based on the existence of these correlations.  
>: Something like: the mind realm is correlated with the physical world
>: and these correlations can account for the unexplained phenomena
>: of consciousness even though no information is exchanged.  Maybe
>: Liebniz was right, monads are synchronized via quantum correlations.
>: 
>Heh, so you think that the monads are synchronised, eh? Well, you're
>wrong! Actually, when you think that you are raising your right hand,
>it's really your left foot that goes up; however, the feedback is
>interpreted by your mind in terms of what it THINKS it is doing. This is
>called "pre-established disharmony". Try proving that I am wrong.


>: 
>: --
>: Thomas Clarke
>: Institute for Simulation and Training, University of Central FL
>: 12424 Research Parkway, Suite 300, Orlando, FL 32826
>: (407)658-5030, FAX: (407)658-5059, clarke@acme.ucf.edu

But I disagree with Dummett here, as I do on many other things. It just
isn't obviously true that we don't know what the essential properties of 
mind are. They are thought and consciousness. Physiological processes in the 
brain are correlated with mental events but are nonidentical with them. 
[That is a categorial remark]. In fact, correlation presupposes 
nonidentity.  I am not a dualist; maybe an agnostic materialist is a more
accurate label, because I agree with Locke that we just don't know that 
material systems can't have mental properties.  The ultimate nature of
matter is probably just as opaque to us as mind.  We know we have to 
make a distinction between mental and physical properties, that's clear;
and the philosophical problem is to work out some nonquestion-begging, 
adequate theory of the disparity of mental and physical, psychological and 
physiological, concepts.

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