Recognizing that the physical can affect the mental, and vice versa, isn’t really the end of the dualism argument. Dualists have incorporated that simple observation from the beginning.
From your quote, the key word is “purely.” Is consciousness purely physical, or is some other substance involved, that’s the question.
You can take either side of the argument, but physical-mental interactions only suggest that mental phenomena are not purely separate. It does not indicate that there are no non-physical elements of consciousness. In other words, that mental states are purely physical.
If you want to read through some of the arguments for and against.
That there are arguments for dualism isn’t the issue. There are arguments for a flat earth and many followers of that philosophy.
All arguments for dualism are equivalent to “God in the gaps”. That is because perfect understanding hasn’t been achieved, mysticism is possible.
The absurdity of the argument is that it can be applied to every mechanical observation. Take a simple lever. You push on one end and the other end moves. We can describe the forces mathematically. But when performing experiments, observations only approach the mathematics because of infinite external interferences to perfect measurement. This culminates in quantum uncertainty. The argument could be made that because we haven’t measured every atom in every state that we don’t actually understand the motion. The motion could be from some mystic source.
Recognizing that the physical can affect the mental, and vice versa, isn’t really the end of the dualism argument. Dualists have incorporated that simple observation from the beginning.
From your quote, the key word is “purely.” Is consciousness purely physical, or is some other substance involved, that’s the question.
You can take either side of the argument, but physical-mental interactions only suggest that mental phenomena are not purely separate. It does not indicate that there are no non-physical elements of consciousness. In other words, that mental states are purely physical.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind–body_dualism
If you want to read through some of the arguments for and against.
That there are arguments for dualism isn’t the issue. There are arguments for a flat earth and many followers of that philosophy.
All arguments for dualism are equivalent to “God in the gaps”. That is because perfect understanding hasn’t been achieved, mysticism is possible.
The absurdity of the argument is that it can be applied to every mechanical observation. Take a simple lever. You push on one end and the other end moves. We can describe the forces mathematically. But when performing experiments, observations only approach the mathematics because of infinite external interferences to perfect measurement. This culminates in quantum uncertainty. The argument could be made that because we haven’t measured every atom in every state that we don’t actually understand the motion. The motion could be from some mystic source.