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Abstract:
How must consciousness supervene on the physical to validate
the materialist view that all mental properties, including
conscious phenomenal ones, derive from underlying physical
structure? It would seem at the least that no two beings with the
same underlying physical causal structure and organization could
differ in any mental property (leaving aside all the qualifications
and nuances that would have to be built in to accommodate the
"wide" or contextual dimension of mental states and their
contents.)<1)
However neo-dualists, like David Chalmers,2 argue that more is
needed since causal supervenience could meet that condition yet not
suffice for materialism. Its compatible with property dualism as
long as there are nomic connections linking physical and mental
properties. According to the property dualist, mental properties
are distinct from physical properties in the same way that
electromagnetic and gravitational forces are distinct. Just as we
can have lawlike links between fundamental physical properties, so
too the neo-dualist claims we can have lawlike relations among
fundamental physical and mental properties. Given the existence of
such natural laws, it may be nomically impossible to have a mental
difference without a physical difference. If so, systems globally
alike in all physical respects must as a matter of nomic necessity
be alike in all mental respects
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