Dualism
Dualism comes in two main varieties.
- Substance dualism ([1] 1.1) asserts that there are two fundamentally different substances in Nature, the material and the mental. This view, which was famously put forward by Descartes in 1649 and elements of which can be found in Plato, is rarely found today other than in religious believers. According to this view, we are the “ghost in the machine” or the pilot at the controls of a vehicle with sophisticated mechanical and automatic control systems.
- Property dualism ([1] 1.4) asserts that there is only one type of material but that this material may have both physical and mental properties. In one form of property dualism, mental properties can be found in all matter, even individual atoms, in an analogous way in which electric charge can be found in elementary particles. It is only when matter is arranged in a certain way that electrical effects, or mental effects, are observed. This view, known as panpsychism [3] or panprotopsychism, is held by a number of workers. Chalmers described this theory, which he calls Type F Monism, as stating that, “phenomenal or proto-phenomenal properties are located at the fundamental level of of physical reality and in a certain sense underlie physical reality”[2]. Russell also [4] expressed this view in 1927.
Property dualism, however, has major difficulties. In some ways it shares the problem of substance dualism in that it is not known how the “psychic” properties interact with the “physical” ones. What would be needed would be something which is analogous to Maxwell’s equations for electromagnetism which describes how the charge of a particle gives rise to forces which affect the forces on them.
Such a new set of equations is not within sight and it is hard even to see what such a set would look like.
In addition there is what is known as the “combination problem”. Although it can be seen that by arranging material in appropriate ways, the charges of the particles can be used to produce objects such as radios or computers, there is no direct analogy between arranging material such that the psychic properties produce objects such as human minds. The human mind is a discrete and specific centre of experience and consciousness which is distinct from all other such centres. In other words all radios are interchangeable but human minds are not. Panpsychism would have to give an explanation for that.
[1] David Papineau, “Thinking about Consciousness”, Clarendon Press, 2002,ISBN 0-19-927115-1
[2] David Chalmers, “The character of consciousness”, Oxford University Press, 2010, ISBN 978-0-19-531111-2
[3] Matthew Benton, “The case for a living Universe”, Postbridge Books, 2024
[4] B. Russell, “The Analysis of Matter”, London: Kegan Paul, 1927