a new kind of dualism david banach department of philosophy st. anselm college

A New Kind of Dualism

David BanachDepartment of Philosophy

St. Anselm College

Plato’s Timaeus(48e-56c )

1.   Way of Reason: Mind. Orders things for the best.A.Internal principle of Change. B.Works by persuasion, the presentation of attractive modes of being.

  2.   The Way of Necessity. Blind Matter constrained by its

form. A.   Must have a medium: the Receptacle B.    Must have a external cause of its being and initial

conditions: The Demiurge or nursemaid. C.    Must have external rule that govern the relationships

between its elements. D.   Action is necessitated by the formal relations of the

elements and their medium.

Plato’s Primal Triangles

Platonic Solids

A Mechanical Theory of the Elements

The Rules Of Life (1) An unoccupied cell surrounded by

exactly three filled cells will become full or alive

(2) A full or live cell surrounded by either two or three live cells remains alive

(3) A live cell surrounded by more than three live cells dies, or becomes empty.

More Life Resources

dbanach.com\life

1-5 Pixel Patterns

Random Pixels

Stable Life Patterns

Oscillating Patterns

Gliders

Acorn

Breeder

A Turing Machine in the Life World

The Life World as Model of the Physical World

Element of the Life world Element of Physical Reality it represents Pixels (Functional Representations in CPU)

Fundamental Particles The Physical World

Program Fundamental Laws of Nature Computer (and the rest of the world) Primal Reality that underlies our physical

reality Large sustainable patterns of pixels Physical objects Meta-regularities or side effects of the program.

Observable regularities of macroscopic objects.

Screen/Keyboard/Agent Input/Output module

Mind

Lessons from The Game of Life

1.   Another primal level of Reality is necessary 2.   The Primal Reality cannot itself work through the way of

Necessity. It can’t be Mechanisms all the way down. 3.   The Primal Reality, the actual causal implementation of

the rules, may be unknowable, given substrate neutrality of form.

4.   Most of the observed regularities will not be real. That is they will not be the actual rules running on the medium that actually cause the course of events. They will be meta-regularities, or side effects of the operation of the rules.

5. Every Physical object and process also has its correlate in the Primal Reality, which may have other properties on the primal level.

A Virtual Pixel

Levels of Reality

Pixels

CPU

Agent

Output

Input

Physical Reality

Primal Reality

I/O Module

Mind and Body

Physical Reality

Primal Reality

I/O Module

Default Primal Reality(Part of PR running program)

BrainI/O Interface

=I/O Device=Mind

It’s NEW!!!! Not a Substance Dualism: Body not a

substance. Not a Property Dualism or Dual Aspect

Theory: Mind and Body are NOT the same thing as existing in the two different realms.

Not an Identity Theory or Physicalism. No Emergence, Supervenience, or

Epiphenomenalism.

It’s IMPROVED!!! Interaction of Mind and Body a natural

result of the theory. Explains the essential Intentionality of

mental states. Explains why Consciousness should be a

mystery while making it a part of (primal) Nature.

Has some empirical, research guiding, implications.

Conclusions

Mechanism implies a new kind of Dualism.

We may need a New Kind of Materialism. Mechanism, by its very nature, is limited in its explanatory power.