The Plurality Thesis is a strange result of physicalism that claims every object is actually billions of overlapping objects. Dualists use this to reject physicalism in philosophy of mind.
NOTES
- Plurality Thesis
- Any physical object, O, will have some particle, P, along its edge which has just as good of a claim to be part of O as to not be part of O
- So, O-with-P has just as much of a claim to be the object as O-without-P
- So, both are objects that overlap everywhere but at P
- There are billions of particles like P around O
- So, for every object O, there are billions of overlapping O’s
- Argument from the Plurality Thesis
- PA: Physicalism is true
- So, Plurality Thesis
- I am in a certain psychological state, E
- By (1), my brain, B, is in E
- By (2) and (4), there are billions of brains in E
- ~(5)
- S1: I clearly don’t share my psychological states with any other brains, much less billions
- So, ~(1)
- So, dualism is true
- N1: this isn't quite true--disproving physicalism leaves it open that you could be an ontological idealist
- N2: proves substance dualism
Further Reading
Mind, Matter, and Nature: A Thomistic Proposal for the Philosophy of Mind" by James Madden
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