Here's a breakdown of the key aspects of interactive dualism:
* Dualism: It acknowledges a fundamental distinction between the mind (non-physical, spiritual) and the body (physical, material).
* Interaction: It asserts that the mind and body can influence and affect each other. This means that mental events can cause physical events (e.g., a decision to move your hand results in the physical act of moving your hand), and vice versa (e.g., pain, a physical sensation, can cause mental distress).
Arguments for Interactive Dualism:
* Intuitions about consciousness: Many people find it intuitively appealing to believe that their mind is something distinct from their body. The feeling of being "in control" of our bodies, the subjective experience of consciousness, and the existence of free will seem to point towards a separate mental entity.
* Arguments from the qualitative nature of experience: Subjective experiences like the redness of red or the pain of a headache seem difficult to reduce to purely physical events. These "qualia" suggest a non-physical component to consciousness.
* Explanatory power: Some proponents argue that interactive dualism can better explain certain phenomena like religious experiences, near-death experiences, and psychic phenomena, which seem to fall outside the scope of physical explanations.
Criticisms of Interactive Dualism:
* Lack of scientific evidence: There is no scientific evidence to support the existence of a non-physical mind that interacts with the physical brain. All evidence suggests that mental processes are ultimately grounded in brain activity.
* The problem of interaction: Explaining how a non-physical mind can interact with a physical brain is a major challenge for dualism. What kind of causal mechanism could link these two fundamentally different entities?
* Circular reasoning: Dualists often rely on subjective experience as evidence for the mind, but this circular reasoning can be criticized for failing to provide a truly independent argument for the existence of a separate mind.
Conclusion:
Interactive dualism remains a debated topic in philosophy. While it offers a seemingly intuitive view of the mind-body relationship, its lack of empirical support and the difficulties in explaining interaction make it a difficult theory to defend scientifically.
It's important to note that there are many variations within dualism, and some forms are less susceptible to specific criticisms. However, the core idea of two distinct interacting entities remains a contentious one.