Stephen Paul King wrote: >>> Pardon the intrusion, but in your opinion does every form of >>>dualism require that one side of the duality has properties and >>>behaviors that are not constrained by the other side of the duality, >>>as examplified by the idea of "randomly emplaced souls"? >>> The idea that all dualities, of say mind and body, allow that >>>minds and bodies can have properties and behaviours that are not >>>mutually constrained is, at best, an incoherent straw dog. >> >> (JC) I don't really uderstand the question the way you've phrased it (I'm
>> not sure what you mean by "mutually constrained"); I *think* you are >> asking whether I believe that it is necessary that any duality must >> have mutually exclusive properties (if not, please elaborate). > > [SPK] > > The same kind of mutual constraint that exist between a >given physical object, say a IBM z990 or a 1972 Jaguar XKE or >the human Stephen Paul King, and the possible complete >descriptions of such. It is upon this distiction betwen >physical object and its representations, or equivalently, >between a complete description and its possible >implementations, that the duality that I argue for is based. >This is very different from the Cartesian duality of >"substances" (res extensa and res cognitas) that are seperate >and independent and yet mysteriously linked. I'm not sure what a "complete description" is. Are we talking about a dualism between, say, a perfect blueprint of a skyscraper and a skyscraper? I'm not sure I'd call that equation a dualism at all. I'd call it a category error. A description of a falling skyscraper can not hurt you (unless you are also a description ... I agree with Bruno here), whereas a falling skyscraper can. But please elaborate. Jonathan Colvin
