More on physicalism, idealism, dualism, and weighing the evidence

Physicalists and idealists (at least some of them) dismiss dualism because of the difficulties in solving the interaction problem. But to do so, they each have to dismiss some of the evidence from their experiences as illusory. Idealists dismiss the evidence of our sensory perceptions as illusory, and physicalists dismiss the evidence of our introspection concerning our own volition as illusory. Again, I'm speaking of some physicalists and idealists here.

But it seems to me that the best theories or models of the world are going to be theories and models that do the best job of accounting for the most evidence. If we follow one line of evidence while dismissing anything that suggests otherwise as illusory, then we aren't really following the evidence where it leads. We're being selective.

But to some degree that may be unavoidable. There are almost always anomalies that we can't explain whenever we adopt a model or view of the world. But the goal ought to be to account for as many pieces of the puzzle as you can when constructing your worldview and dismissing as few pieces of evidence as anamalies or illusions as we can.

While I fully acknowledge the difficulties with the interaction prolem in substance dualism, idealism and physicalism are both untenable for me because of the pills I'd have to swallow if I accepted them. I can't imagine an argument that would be suffient to really and honestly cause me to think the external world is all mere percpetion with nothing external. While I might be able to say the external world is an illusion, and entertain the idea in a philosophical discussion over cheese and crackers, I don't think I could bring myself to honestly believe it. Or if I could, I guess I just haven't come across an argument that's sufficient to do the trick.

I feel the same way about physicalism. While a lot of physicalists will disagree with me about this, I don't think physicalism leaves any room for real volition or moral responsibility. Given physicalism, you can't rationally praise or blame anybody for anything because nothing is anybody's fault. Nobody does anything on purpose. We are all passive objects being acted upon, like a boat riding the waves. I've probably thought more about morality than any other subject in Christian apologetics. I've seen all kinds of arguments on every side, and there hasn't been anything that has moved me to think moralty is just in our heads and that we don't really have moral obligations, and there aren't any ojectively true moral claims. I can see how that would follow from physicalism, but that is precisely part of why I reject physicalism. But even if I could bring myself to think morality is entirely subjective, it would take another monumental argument to persuade me that I don't have control over my behavior at least some of the time, that I don't act volitionally, for reasons, and out of motives and intentions, that I'm just a passive observer with the illusion of volition. But if physicalism were true, that would have to be the case, so to be consistent, I must reject physicalism.

While dualism may have its deficulties, it has the advantage of at least trying to account for all of the evidence without dismissing some of it as illusory. Dualism is a livable worldview that isn't hard to honestly believe.

Other posts on this subject:

Skepticism about theories that invoke illusion to dismiss anomalies

It's always more reasonable to affirm the obvious than to deny the obvious

Materialism, dualism, and idealism

The power of intuition