Dualism is probably not correct about the relationship between mind and matter.

Thanks to Skeptic for not plunging in head over heels... I'll grant that my first round was a little unclear... I'll try to clarify it a little bit here. Skeptic says he's concerned with whether or not the relationship between mind and matter is that of ontologically separate categories or not. He proposes that they are one and the same - I propose that they are not. I am very pleased that skeptic has agreed to not muck about with the problems of dreaming, deception, or the matrix - it makes the whole argument much simpler and easier to comprehend. As he has aptly recognized, my contention is that the processes of perception in the mind are fundamentally different (a reaction) to the stimuli that create them. *************************************************** I will grant that perception itself is a physical process - that much is obvious because everything in the brain is just chemicals and neurons firing and such. However, perception qua perception is not a physical process. Let's consider an apple. When we perceive an apple, we take in certain properties like red light bouncing off the skin, a spherical-ish shape, a stem/leaf on top, etc... all of which can be considered properties XYZ of the apple, or predicates of apple-ness. When these elements enter my brain, chemicals and electrons move about, none of which could properly be described as predicates of an apple. In other words, none of the processes my brain uses during perception of an apple have anything to do with apple-ness. A non-dualistic framework that holds that the apple and my perception of it are one and the same seeks to secure the idea that the predicates of the apple are only extant in the brain, thus, breaking the posited dualism. However, there are several problems with this: 1) The fact that "apple-ness" and our perception of an apple contain different "metadata" (by this I mean that brain chemicals and red skin are not the same medium) shows that reality and perception are not of the same type. 2) Kant's notion of metaphysical lenses answers the objection of why perception conforms to reality - basically, we are hard-wired to perceive the world in spatial, temporal, and physical ways, regardless of how reality actually is. 3) Independence of shared experience (elephant/refrigerator example) shows that the stimuli for these experiences is independent of the experiences themselves. This is further demonstrated by the fact that one cannot control experiences of external stimuli. ****************************************************************** Some Responses: >> "Why would the process of perception be ontologically different from stimuli?" Because that which makes up perception is ontologically different from that which makes up stimuli. Consider my earlier example about apple-ness. If the apple is our stimuli, and the perception of the apple our experience of it, then to be ontologically equivalent, both would have to have identical predicates, which they obviously do not. >> "I would argue that if two people where to have identical physical makeups, then they would have the same experience/perception." Supposing such a circumstance, this poses no danger to a dualistic framework. If two identical people have identical experiences of the same stimuli, it's simply the case that you replicated the medium through which we observe the reaction to stimuli - it's as though you made a computer model of a pool game, ran it, and then ran it again with the same parameters and were surprised to see the same results. ********************************************************** Conclusion: Perhaps the best way to explain why perception and reality are different is probably the types of "is" - predication, existence, and identity. Predication - Superman is a man with a red cape; Superman has strange powers. Existence - Superman is; Superman exists. Identity - Superman is Clark Kent. In the case of dualism, we have a problem with trying to confuse the is of predication with that of identity. Given that both stimuli and reaction actually exist, we are concerned with discovering their predicates. Identity-dualism, or the idea that perception and reality are the same because they concern the same process (physicality) ignores predication and focuses on the is of identity. However, the fact that two things exist in the same medium does not mean they are comprised of the same predicates. Attempting to equate perception and reality solely on the basis of physicality is analogous to calling a dog's tail a leg, and then then saying you proved it is so. In other words, to show that perception and reality are the same, it must be done on the basis of predication, NOT identity. NEGATED.