Sep 11 2007
Mind You?
Dualism is an ectoplasmic orgasm. In the philosophy of mind, dualism is the belief that mind and body are two distinct separate things. It’s the belief that the mind is not dependent on the brain for it’s existence. It’s difficult for even me, a die hard sci-fi fan, to imagine my “essence” being downloaded into a computer main frame so my mind can continue it’s existence. For those who think that their dreams are real and they have a reservation in almighties kingdom, it’s easy to imagine their mind as a mystical blue uploadable aura. Go Go Ghost busters!
I don’t quite understand the “need” to believe in the spirit. There certainly isn’t any empirical reason to do so. It’s one of those leap of faith things. The belief can easily be seen as a natural extension of the desire of self preservation programmed into every thinking animal. All it takes is the capacity for imagination and sky castles, virgin orgies and infinite family reunions could cause a person to actually anticipate the closing of the curtains. But for a realist such as myself, thinking about the curtain call reduces the amount of thinking time I know I have on stage. Why squander my life on promises from people who’s greatest wisdom is, “because I said he said so in my head, now get ready for your dunk, we’re gonna take away your mediocrity and make you born again, special like… Booga Booga.”
The antithesis of body and mind dualism is materialistic monism, the belief that there is only one type of stuff. There seems to be a great deal of word play in this mole arena, because stuff automatically references matter. Energy, in the E=MC2 sense, is certainly “stuff”. I assume thinkers who parade the monists title are well aware of this and conclude that there is one type of stuff that can be chopped into two substuffs and those substuffs come in a variety of flavors. I’ll digest that with great satisfaction because there is plenty of empirical evidence for that universal conclusion. I, in that sense, am a Natural materialist. But strict Monist materialism is a few bricks short of a shit house. Continue Reading »
