Consider the duality in Stone's Representation theorem, it is generalized in Category theory to a Duality between Logical Algebras and Topological spaces. If the physical world can be completely represented by topological spaces (and their morphisms) - and it is - and Minds are Logical systems - implemented by self-referential logical systems, then Descartes' duality can be made to work nicely IF we replace the ontology of Substances with an Ontology of Process. This idea was pointed out by Vaughan Pratt in his seminal paper: Rational Mechanics and Natural Mathematics.

@AtticPhilosophy

8 ай бұрын

Interesting, but Im not sure that work has much to say about dualism. For one thing, you can have all the morphisms you like from A to B without knowing whether or not A=B, so this won't decide between dualism and monism. But also, the mind isn't just a logical representational system - it also involves non-representational states like emotions, feelings, sensations, that aren't about anything.

I have thought of dualism, I didn't know René Descartes was the influential people who kinda invented the concept of dualism. Good knowledge!

So essentially, our body is Chef Linguini and our mind is Remi the rat.

Great video. I've always thought it was a bit unfair that property dualism is lumped in with substance dualism, where to me, it more resembles monism or a materialistic theory than it does dualism as Descartes idea. I suppose there is the "distinctness" thing going on with it, but even materialistic/monistic theories acknowledge metal experiences enough to try to explain why they exist. I mean, I see a lot of agreement between a substance dualism (let's say simple epiphenomenalism) and behaviorism, functionalism, or biological naturalism. Whereas substance dualism and property dualism seem fundamentally irreconcilable. (Didn't mean to make such a long post. I guess I've been stewing on this.)

@AtticPhilosophy

Жыл бұрын

Definitely. Some people even use ‘dualism’ for anything that’s not identity theory, because the mental properties/states are distinct from brain properties/states. Panpsychism is usually understood as a kind of monism - just one kind of stuff - but it admits two fundamental kinds of property, neither reducible to the other.

Thanks for another fantastic video Mark. Random thought / question; do you feel a philosopher has a (ethical, political or otherwise) responsibility to persuade others? If so, how does a philosopher make sense of the limits of that in a practical sense? I always struggle with identifying when to share (what I see) as the truth vs. withholding the truth from an ethical standpoint. Is there any sort of generalised framework you personally look to when faced with this dilemma? It seems to be that many famous Philosophers (eg. Socrates et al) were perhaps overly brazen in sharing their views. Perhaps to the detriment of others. It seems to me; a major problem of our time?

@AtticPhilosophy

Жыл бұрын

That’s a great question! I guess there’s no easy answer, but a big duty for philosophers is to show where arguments are good or bad, irrespective of the view. Also to help clarify ideas. It always seems more honest to me when you’re arguing for conditionals, eg, ‘if social equality is important, then economic redistribution is justified’ - and perhaps more effective too, than stating outright this or that position.

Whatever the neural correlates of numbers and colors might be, it doesn't seem like they could themselves be numbers or colors.

@AtticPhilosophy

9 ай бұрын

Right - when you talk of something’s colour, you’re not talking about a mere experience. It makes sense to say that you experienced (or hallucinated) the cup being red, whereas in fact it’s orange (or whatever).