How to defend Dualistic Interactionism?

Question

I am writing an essay for arguments AGAINST dualistic interactionism.

One of my points are regarding Brain Damage.
If mind is indeed a separate entity from the brain, why is it that whenever we receive brain damage, we see significant impacts upon our minds?

However, I do realize that this argument is not complete. I need to know how might a interactionist respond to this claim.

How might a dualistic interactionist defend their argument against brain damages?

Answer 1

Cool. Let me put on my 'Devil's Advocate' hat.

All right... if I were a dualistic interactionalist, I might observe that perhaps the particular interactional location is not unspecified. Or to put it another way, the non-physical thoughts might still exist, but they would just have no way of manifesting.

This does leave me in the odd situation of asserting that a person who doesn't recognize his family actually still does recognize them but just doesn't know that he does or otherwise can't present the appearance that he does. It would be kind of like saying a computer with a disconnected graphics card was still processing your graphics, but just can't send the information to your monitor, or even to other operational processes that are still in communication with your monitor.

But I think if I were a dualistic interactionalist, I would instead compare it to the eyes. A person without eyes can't see, but he can imagine what it would be like to see. A person without the section of the brain that lets him recognize people can't perform that task, but can still imagine what it would be like if he could. This would suggest to me as a dualist that parts of the brain facilitate certain actions - just as you need eyes to see or hands to type - but that there is still an unharmed non-physical mind connection still READY to recognize, see, or type as soon as those abilities come online.

Hope that helps!

Answer 2

i think that the mind IS separate from the brain. however the mind is a prodcut of the brain. brain damage would in fact the effect the mind but is can also effect the senses such as touch. however touch can becomed numbed due to brain damage we were still able to touch. but just becuse we cant feel it doesnt mean its was never there. so the brain is in fact separate form the mind.

we dualist may also say that every brain is chmicaly the same. and it is. every human body and brain is identical in terms of cell matter and chemical with organs etc. yet we also have dinstince and very different personalities from eachother. but the human body in terms of features may look different it is still howver made up of all the same elements.

Answer 3

This isn't evidence against dualistic interaction, it's evidence of one of the interactions, that is, the brain affecting the mind. Now does the brain-damaged person lose all personal freedom? Perhaps in death or a vegetative state, but not in a lot of lesser cases.
Try this on for size: the mind is a figment of our imaginations, but it is an effectual figment, that is, it does actual work. In this sense, it is a "real" thing, but not "real" in the usual sense. Numbers are abstract concepts, but they do real work, too. Also logic, phylogeny, and any workable intellectual method. The arguments against dualism frequently presuppose that the mind must be real in some sense that is like the sense in which stones, carrots, and microwave ovens are real. This presupposition makes it easier to attack.
"Gravity", as an invisible force, falls into an ontological category that is highly suspect, but we accept it because stipulating it as an invisible force allows one to do the math, and to make reliable predictions in the real world.
One of the problems with the kind of reality that the mind has is that it doesn't fit into our categories of the cognizable and intelligible. Not only can't a mind cognize itself, but it can't conceive of itself. In other words, when you reflect on your own thoughts, feelings, experiences, etc, you can't get "back" far enough to reflect on the directive focus of the reflecting. And neither can we conceive of the mind of another person in any adequate sense. We accept evidence that it is there, because of the work it does, but we can't conceive of what it is in itself.
If the mind were MERELY the brain, we would have only a meat machine capable of adapting UNCONSCIOUSLY to the behavior-shaping experiences it has in the world and their rewards or punishments. We would not have the egoic freedom to reflect on a thought, or on a thought about a thought. The "mind" would be tied to the causal determinacy of the meat machine, and would have no mobility or freedom.

Answer 4

Think of the mind as the signal and the brain as the TV. Even when the TV is off the signal is still being attenuated by the antenna. That is why a brain damaged person presents as aberrant because the TV set is a bit broken. The degree of damage is what determines the clarity of the signal.

Answer 5

Simple, you just had to go a little step further by changing your premise "...mind is indeed a separate entity from the brain..."

The mind is indeed NOT a separate entity from the brain.

Since mind is collection and recollection of thoughts, memory, intention, desire, intellectual ability, then by force it is the abstract resulting from the total functionality of the brain; Software (mind), hardware (brain). If the hardware is damaged, it impacts the running of the software, not the visa verse.

You said it yourself, "...whenever we receive brain damage, we see significant impacts upon our minds?". This is your proof. Both are integral and inseparable like the sides of one coin; a total integrity.