Consciousness: Feser on dualism by Descartes (General)

by dhw, Wednesday, February 03, 2021, 10:57 (1170 days ago) @ David Turell

QUOTES: "As I have often suggested, the real problem with Descartes’ position is not that he has trouble explaining how soul and body interact. The problem is that he thinks of them as interacting in the first place. It is that he posits two substances rather than one. And the reason this is a problem is that he thereby simply fails to capture the truth about human nature.” (dhw’s bold)

“This problem does not arise for the Scholastic conception of soul and body, because, again, it does not regard them as distinct substances in the first place. A human being is one thing, not two, albeit a thing with both corporeal and incorporeal activities. And since it is one thing, the question of interaction does not arise." (dhw’s bold)

DAVID: This fits my view of soul body dualism as two interacting aspects of 'me', one material and one immaterial.

No it doesn’t. The article could hardly be more emphatic: there is NO interaction between soul and body, because a human being is ONE THING, not two! See the bolds above. This is the compromise that I have been suggesting, though I go one step further: my version is that the material brain produces immaterial thought, emotion etc. (materialism) but the product itself may be (I would emphasize “may”) a form of energy that can exist independently of its original source. Hence NDEs and other psychic experiences.