The Human Question

The following is an ironic/dialectical argument against the assumption that the mere claim that to every physical state there is a mental state (and vice versa) would, if granted, imply that mental states are not immaterial. First reply: Mental states may still be thoroughly immaterial, but also capable of downward causality upon physical (this is not my position, but I'm just pointing out the non-sequitur in the physicalist argumetn). Second reply: Or even if we posit ONLY bottom-up causality, we'd have a superfluous, epiphenomenal, mental state... which would be absurd... but not incapable of existing apart from matter.  Especially if the cognition had somehow transcends the limitations of space and time. Comment: Yes, the latter does seem to be grasping at straws, and I'm not that inclined to be a dualist.  But I thought it interesting to point out the non-sequitur in the physicalist basis for denying the existence of the non-physical.  And I think it's importa...

I just learned that in my previous posts I got physicalism/supervenience wrong. Correct understanding: supervenience is the claim that a cognitive act is realizable in different instances, and in different kinds of matter. Physicalism is the denial that there is anything other than a materially realized version of consciousness.