property dualism

• a physical substance, eg a brain, can produce mental properties

• only material substances can exist

michael tooley:

• argues that:

  • strokes, drug abuse and head injuries can lead to drastic character changes

    • ∴ physical brain does have some power over our personal identity

  • you cannot reduce all mental states to physical states and there is more to us than just the body

  • compromise between substance dualism and materialism

john searle:

- Searle's Stand on Consciousness:

- Argues against the traditional scientific belief that consciousness is beyond scientific study, asserting it as an objective biological phenomenon.

- Existence and Effects of Consciousness:

- Contends that consciousness is real and has effects in the physical world; for instance, the desire to move one's arm leads to the physical movement.

- Five Key Features of Consciousness:

1. Real and irreducible.

2. All conscious states have a qualitative feel.

3. Subjective nature of all conscious states.

4. Unified awareness of multiple things simultaneously.

5. Consciousness functions causally based on behaviour.

- Observer-Dependent Reality:

- Proposes that "consciousness creates an observer-independent reality," meaning the existence of anything in the real world depends on an observing conscious being for its existence.