02-27-2008, 03:42 PM
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| Puritanboard Freshman | | Join Date: Mar 2004 Location: Jackson, MS
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Quote:
Originally Posted by cih1355  I found the following argument in Fesar's book, Philosophy of Mind. I would like to know how you would respond to it.
Here is the argument: "A Cartesian immaterial substance, being outside space, is outside this universe. For it to affect the physical world, and in particular the brain, it would have to introduce energy into the physical universe; and for the brain in turn to affect an immaterial substance, it would seemingly transfer energy out of the physical universe. Either way, the amount of energy in the physical universe would fail to be constant. So the very idea of causal interaction between Cartesian material and immaterial substances seem to violate the law of physics." | I've seen some atheists bring up this objection as well. It makes many assumptions and I don't think it's a very good criticism.
I like C.J. Ducasse's response: Quote:
. . . The objection to interactionism that causation, in either direction, as between psychical [mental] and physical events is precluded by the principle of the conservation of energy (or of energy-matter) is invalid for several reasons.
A. One reason is that the conservation which that principle asserts is not something known to be true without exception but is . . . only a defining-postulate of the notion of a wholly closed physical world, so that the question whether psycho-physical or physico-psychical causation ever occurs is (but in different words) the question whether the physical world is wholly closed. And that question is not answered by dignifying as a "principle" the assumption that the physical world is wholly closed.
B. Anyway, as C. D. Broad has pointed out, it might be the case that whenever a given amount of energy vanishes from, or emerges in, the physical world at one place, then an equal amount of energy respectively emerges in, or vanishes from that world at another place.
C. And thirdly, if "energy" is meant to designate something experimentally measurable, then "energy" is defined in terms of causality, not causality in terms of transfer of energy. That is, it is not known that all causation, or, in particular, causation as between psychical and physical events, involves transfer of energy. (Curt Ducasse, "In Defense of Dualism" in Sidney Hook, ed., Dimensions of Mind, Collier 1961, pp. 88-89)
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Don Jones
Member, First Presbyterian,
Jackson, MS
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