Mind-body dualism is false

Thanks to socialpinko for initiating this debate. Pro argument relies on several claims I think are rather dubious:1) The PCCP (physical causal closure principle) in conjunction with;2) The ECO (the energy conservation objection).I will rebut these and then offer an additional reason to think that the causal closure principle doesn't hold and that mind-body dualism emerges unscathed.Before doing that I want to clear up a minor issue: Pro formulates the problem as if it's an argument against all versions of mind-body dualisms but clearly this isn't the case. It's only an argument against an interactive form of mind-body dualism wherein mental causes cause physical events and vice versa. [1] There are other forms of mind-body dualism that this argument doesn't even touch like parallelism (see: interactionist parallelism as formulated by philosopher Uwe Meixner), occasionalism, and epiphenomenalism. [2] I don't find any of these other options particularly compelling, except, perhaps, Meixner's formulation but it's a point to keep in mind. [3] Even if the PCCP is true that wouldn't necessarily rule out mind-body dualism in all it's forms. Also, technically speaking, supervenience doesn't have much to do with the PCCP even though most mind-body dualists will not hold to supervenience, although there could be "necessitation dualists" as Daniel Stoljar points out. [4] But, in any case, I will go ahead and argue that interactive mind-body dualism is not refuted by this objection either.1) The PCCPOne has to wonder how one is supposed to even justify this principle aside from an appeal to faulty science (as I will show below)? It obviously can't be the result of an empirical/scientific investigation of every physical event there is and concluding that there where no non-physical causes. Heck, we can't even lay claim to having extensively studied human beings in order to make this judgement. It appears to be a metaphysical principle; not a scientific principle as it is often made out to be. And, as Laurence Bonjour astutely has pointed out, appealing to the PCCP in cases of mental causation in order to rule out dualism appears to be putting the cart before the horse. [5] That is because it would be precisely at the issue of whether there are non-physical, mental causes that can effect physical states (especially in human beings) wherein one would would find the most compelling counter-examples to the proposed the PCCP. One couldn't really assess the truth value of the PCCP without first considering and assessing the theories of mind on offer (in this case mind-body dualism).2) The ECOWhat I take to be a fatal flaw in Pro's argument is this: Pro's argument appears to rely on outdated physics! Philosopher of science Robin Collins explains:"GR [general relativity] presents a major problem for the EC objection. The problem is that no local concept of stress-energy (and hence energy or momentum) can be defined for the gravitational field in GR. Consequently, BPEC [boundary principle of energy conservation] does not typically apply in GR since one can neither define the total gravitational energy in a region of space nor the rate at which gravitational energy flows in or out of the region. This implies that although gravitational fields and waves clearly causally influence material objects, their influence cannot be understood in terms of movement of energy through space. As physicist Robert Wald notes, 'In general relativity there exists no meaningful local expression for gravitational stress-energy and thus there is no meaningful local energy conservation law which leads to a statement of energy conservation.' (1984, p. 70, note 6.)" [6] (Brackets for clarification added by me.)And,"Now for the punch line. A theorem proved by John Bell in 1966, called Bell's theorem ruled out the above explanation and any other explanation of these quantum correlations involving only local causation. Bell showed that if certain experimental results predicted by quantum mechanics occurred, explanations based on local causes could not explain the correlations. Since 1977, these predictions have been verified numerous times. Now within all physical theories energy exchange always involves non-instantaneous and hence local causation, since the packets of energy (or stress-energy) must move through space. Consequently, Bell's Theorem rules out any explanation of these correlations by means of energy exchange. Consequently, quantum mechanics requires the existence of correlations that cannot be explained by an exchange of energy." [7]The problem here should be immediately obvious. If energy conservation doesn't even hold for all for all physical interactions why would we expect to hold for the proposed physical to non-physical interactions? There doesn't seem to be a clear reason to think so. It even appears that some interactions on the quantum level happen without transfer of energy so why could that not be the case for mind-body dualism as well? Heck, even if the PCCP were true there are versions of interactive mind-body dualism that are plausible. [8]An argument against the PCCPPerhaps paradoxically and unintentionally, Pro has given us a good reason to reject the PCCP. Remember, the PCCP essentially states that we will never have to appeal to anything outside of physics/physical explanations in order to explain some physical event(s). Given that physics doesn't appeal to mental properties in it's explanations of physical events/states then it would appear that to explain a persons' behavior, given the PCCP, one would never appeal mental causes in order to explain these physical events. This would mean that mental states (like thoughts, intentions, desires, and plans) never explain a persons' behavior. Pro may have thought that mind-body dualism is false, but given the PCCP, that thought or other related thoughts didn't cause him to type up this debate. Furthermore, his thoughts never cause him to do anything. That seems just obviously false and violates very common-sensical views on mental causation (ironically, mental causation concerns lead Pro to reject mind-body dualism). This spirals into a radical form of epiphenomalism which seems unplatable. [9] Obviously, this would cast doubt on any conclusion we draw, and that is precisely because the PCCP is assumed to be true. If one gives up that assumption then there is a way to avoid this epiphenomalism. And if one gives up the PCCP then Pro's particular argument against mind-body dualism here doesn't stick.Sources[1] http://en.wikipedia.org...(philosophy_of_mind)#Interactionism [2] http://en.wikipedia.org...(philosophy_of_mind)#Parallelism [3] http://ndpr.nd.edu... [4] http://books.google.com...[5] http://faculty.washington.edu... (p 6) [6] http://ebookbrowse.com... (p 8)[7] ibid (p 17) [8] http://dro.dur.ac.uk...[9] http://plato.stanford.edu...