Q1. Is the following a successful argument for dualism? Explain your answer carefully.
300 words.max.
this is my argument, how would I go about countering this if you can write it in 300 words thanks.
1. whatever is conceivable is not necessarily possible.
2. I can conceive myself existing without a body.
3. Therefore it is not necessarily possible for me to exist without a body?
Hume's first principle suggests that the entities (living, non living, concepts, images, etc.,) for which we cannot understand, judge, distinct, etc., is absurd and impossible. Conceivability is governed by cognitive efficiency, hidden contradictions, and conceptions. By careful training of the cognitive skills, ability to understand hidden contradictions and reality of conceptions the details of the entities could be assimilated by the mind. Thus, when a mind conceives an entity in the best possible way by decoding the structure, characteristic feature, purpose of existence, etc., any conceivable things are considered possible. Thus, everything is reducible by the mind.
Considering the fact that everything is reducible to matter, concepts of monism seems to be the perfection than the dualism concepts. Mind and body are one and the same. One cannot place the thoughts, leave them in a place, say a room and proceed to another room and still claim to be at different places, functioning independently. In the present world, one cannot justify the existence of a human being without verifying a physical, living body. Existing without body cannot be confirmed irrespective of all the advancements in science and technology. There definitely is a transfer of energy in some form when the life source gets dissociated from a physical body but there hasn’t been any proof that the life source that gets transformed or simply vanishes is nothing but the mind of an individual. Unless otherwise a mind reveals its presence by some means or science identifies the mind in some form, monism prevails over dualism.
Thus, it could be ascertained that an individual cannot conceive themselves without a body.
From 1 and 2, philosophically using the psychological theories, the concepts of conceivability, dualism as well as monism, it can be hypothesized that conceivability of entities that have physical meaning and physical importance are two different things. Mind and body are associated with these in philosophical as well as scientific way. Human body is something that has a physical meaning. Limbs for motion, sensory organs to sense, brain to think and react, etc. Physical importance is something that need not be of a matter but is considered to be a valuable for its mere existence. It is the Mind and the thoughts.
Thoughts become words and words become action and action brings changes. A mind could or couldn’t exist as an independent entity but if another mind conceives the former and expresses a response by careful utilization of cognitive skills, analyzing hidden contradictions, and decoding conceptions, a mind possibly exists but not as self.
A mind can only exist independently as a thought with the support of the people in an environment. Hence, when the mind conceives the actual meaning of existence of mind through influencing a physical object, one can exist as a mind without body.
Q1. Is the following a successful argument for dualism? Explain your answer carefully. Whatever is conceivable...