The Case for Dualism (The nature of a \'Creator\')

by xeno6696 , Sonoran Desert, Tuesday, November 02, 2010, 02:43 (5134 days ago) @ dhw

Matt continues to wrestle with Martin's case for dualism:
> "His argument here isn't simple mathematics (such as 1 + 1 = 2), it's an argument that we can only distinguish between numbers of things by relation of one set of things to another set of things."
> 
> I don't want to spoil the fun, and of course I can only go by what you have told us about this book, but aren't you being led off the track? You have said that the whole thing is meant to be an attack on materialism, and in your post of 23 October at 21.54 you made it clear that in this chapter he is trying to prove Cartesian dualism, i.e. that "there is mind, and there is matter". He can faff around as much as he likes with his ones and twos, but there is no way that he or anyone can prove mathematically that consciousness and identity are not extensions of matter.-I think perhaps I just put the support in for the bridge, and skipped the rest of the bridge...-He goes back to that clumsy mathematical pull to make the point that 'two' is more fundamental than 'one.' He's not talking explicitly about applying math to consciousness, only speaking that, crudely, 'all things come in twos.' To Martin, we 'think' there's consciousness, but he views non-consciousness as important too, because by his reasoning, we can only 'know' consciousness by comparing our selves (conscious beings) to inanimate matter. So, since there is consciousness (1) and inanimate matter in the world (2) than there is fundamentally two things in the universe; mind and matter. -It's not terribly convincing to me either.

--
\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"

\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"