Why dualism?

[marplots]

Why did humans develop this way? Pascal Boyer answers that in Religion Explained. Our brains see and sense conscious forces behind everything, like otherwise unexplained rustling in the grass. If our ancestors all stayed put to be devoured by predators instead of making this assumption we wouldn't be here to ask about dualism. And many times those unexplained sounds and movements had no visible animal to account for them. So unseen conscious entities were responsible. And then there were dreams ....

The dreams explanation I don't mind, but I've always had a problem with the "rustle in the grass" bit, if only because curiosity and inquisitiveness can contribute to survival as well - as when searching for food or trying new foodstuffs (just one example). I don't think the "tiger in the tall grass" narrative tells us much at all, but is closer to a "just so story." What we'd like is an experiment to bolster the case.

 

[Pup]

The dreams explanation I don't mind, but I've always had a problem with the "rustle in the grass" bit, if only because curiosity and inquisitiveness can contribute to survival as well - as when searching for food or trying new foodstuffs (just one example). I don't think the "tiger in the tall grass" narrative tells us much at all, but is closer to a "just so story." What we'd like is an experiment to bolster the case.

I think the tiger in the grass works along with curiosity. One needs both. One can be partly afraid of the noise and partly curious, because it might be a rabbit that's good to eat, but it's still caused by a sentient being.

 

[daramantus]

There is no problem with dualism, and NDE supports it, DMT and other drugs too.
But I prefer pluralism and Aristotles interpretation

 

[marplots]

I think the tiger in the grass works along with curiosity. One needs both. One can be partly afraid of the noise and partly curious, because it might be a rabbit that's good to eat, but it's still caused by a sentient being.

I listened to a podcast recently about evolutionary psychology where my "just so" objection was addressed directly. The response was that it was a valid critique, but common in science where pseudo-explanations are used to generate hypotheses. The difficulty didn't come in when a nice story was constructed - so long as that story was then checked in some experimental/empirical fashion. When the "just so" story is mischaracterized as having probative value on its own, that's where the trouble starts.

Here's the podcast: http://humstatic.uchicago.edu/philosophy/elucidations/Haufe_EvolutionaryPsychology.mp3