It has been claimed that substance dualism is not falsifiable. It could be true but it's irrelevant, because substance dualism is not a scientific hypothesis but a philosophical doctrine within philosophy of mind. However, substance dualism could be formulated in a scientific way that enable its testing with empirical means. The Filter Hypothesis (FH), as discussed here, intends to address that.
The FH presuposses substance dualism, and considers that consciousness is trasmitted/filtered by the brain, but not metaphysically caused by it. The brain is a transmitter, filter and receiver of consciousness to enable the latter to express and support living beings in their struggle for survival in a physical world.
Hypotheses are tested by their consequences and predictions. If the latter are confirmed, the former is corroborated; if not, the former is refuted or undermined (it will depends if the refuted prediction is central to the hypotheses tested, or only an peripherical or secondary aspect of it; in any case, more testing is needed and possible reformulation of the hypothesis will be required).
The Filter Hypothesis have predictive power and, in principle, it's testable:
1)It predicts that materialism will fails to explain consciousness, because the latter is not a property (intrinsic or emergent) of matter. (Thus, if materialists could show, in a convincing way, that cerebral processes actually produce or cause consciousness, the FH would be falsified). That simple fact proves that the FH can be refuted.
For the time being, the prediction of FH about the fails of materialism to explain consciousness have been confirmed. According to David Chalmers: "Consciousness, the subjetive experience of an inner self, could be a phenomenon forever beyond the reach of neuroscience. Even a detailed knowledge of the brain's workings and the neural correlates of consciousness may fail to explain how or why human beings have self-aware minds" (Scientific American, 1997)
There are scientific reasons to believe why Chalmers is probably right. As argues physicist Marco Biagini: "The claim that the electric impulses in our brain are or generate sensations and thoughts, is in contradiction with the laws of physics that consider equivalent all electric impulses, inside or outside our brain. In fact, an electric impulse is formed only by some electrons moving in a certain direction; according to the laws of physics, electrons are all equal and indistinguishable, and they are always moving in every material or electric circuits. To ascribe to the electrons in our brain the property to generate consciousness, and not to ascribe the same property to the electrons moving in a bulb, is in contradiction with quantum physics, which establishes that all electrons are equal and indistinguishable, that is they have all exactly the same properties.
Besides, the laws of physics establish that electric impulses generate only electromagnetic fields; so the materialistic hypothesis that the electric impulses in the brain generate sensations, emotions and thoughts is in striking contradiction with the laws of physics. The electromagnetic waves generated by the electric impulses in our brain are absolutely equivalent to the ones generated by any other electric impulses; such waves go out of our brain and travel in the external space at the velocity of light, as every electromagnetic wave."
Materialists would have that show how consciousness is actually caused by (and not simply correleted with) electro-chemical processes in the brain. In that case, the FH would be refuted.
Given that consciousness-brain processes correlation/dependence is a prediction of both materialism and FH, that correlation can't be used as evidence for materialism and against FH or viceversa, because both hypotheses are confirmed by it. The choice between materialism and FH should be made considering the whole data available for us, and carefully examining which of these hypotheses fit better with them while being more parsimonous.
2)The FH predicts that consciousness have causal efficacy.
Current scientific evidence support that prediction:
-The placebo effect is, by definition, "a medical phenomena in which a person’s beliefs about an inert substance or a sham therapy results in that treatment having the expected consequences of those beliefs upon health. The placebo effect can also be an additional boost for a real therapy or drug beyond that warranted solely by its actual physiological action"
Note that the definition uses a subjetive aspect of consciousness (i.e. beliefs) as a causal trigger that produces consequences on the body (that is, beliefs have a causal power).
Clinical and Experimental evidence support that. According to this scientific study: "Our results indicate that placebo treatments of peripheral disease processes can affect physical parameters more easily and strongly than biochemical parameters. This differentiation holds true for both datasets we tested, i.e., conventional placebo-controlled clinical trials, and clinical trials that included a no-treatment arm. As a corollary, it follows that placebo-responsive subgroups may also be identified in datasets in which global averages conceal such specific responses.
Although much progress has been made in the past decade in understanding the biological basis of placebo effects in neurological conditions, e.g., pain and parkinsonian disease, the mechanisms that mediate placebo effects on peripheral organ systems still await to be further elucidated. The differential placebo responsiveness of physical versus biochemical parameters, as disclosed in the present study, offers a good starting point for theoretical considerations on possible mediating mechanisms, as well as for future investigations in this field"
That evidence is inconsistent with a well-known materialistic view that consciousness is "nothing but" a by-product of cerebral processes. If it were true, then the physical effects of the placebo effect couldn't to be caused by beliefs, because beliefs (as part of the subjetive phenomenon of consciousness) would be non-efficacious.
-Cognitive behavioural theraphy for the treatment of phobias entails that consciousness have a causal power. By definition, that therapy consist in "a psychotherapeutic approach that aims to influence problematic and dysfunctional emotions, behaviors and cognitions through a goal-oriented, systematic procedure. CBT can be seen as an umbrella term for therapies that share a theoretical basis in behavioristic learning theory and cognitive psychology, and that use methods of change derived from these theories"
Note that CBT definition considers it to be a "psycho"-therapeutic approach, not a neurological one. It entails that CBT therapy takes into account at least a subjetive aspect (the cognitive processes) as essential part of a therapy to produce certain effects (i.e. the cognitive processes have some kind of causal influence).
That confirms another prediction of the FH. If beliefs and conscious phenomena wouldn't have any causal efficacy at all, then the this prediction of FH would be refuted.
3)The filter hypothesis predicts (as possible) psi and afterlife phenomena. Actually, these phenomena are not necessarily implied in the FH, because it's logically possible to consciousness exists apart of the brain, but not manifest itself in the physical world after the physical death of the body.
Given that consciousness is not produced by the brain (and it is not identical with it), it exists with independence of a physical brain (but it's temporally related to the brain in biological organisms).
This point is more controversial, because the evidence for psi and even more for afterlife is not considered compelling by many scientists. However, the evidence exists (compelling or not), and skeptics like Ray Hyman and Susan Blackmore have admitted it. (For a detailed discussion and documentation, in a proper historical context, of the skeptics' admissions of psi evidence, see the book Parapsychology and the Skeptics by Chris Carter)
If evidence for psi or afterlife were non-existent (not only controversial, because it supposes that there is something interesting happening on psi experiments to be subject of controversy; but non-existent at all), then another (possible) predicition of the FH wouldn't be expected to be possible, and it would give us another reason to prefer other theories about consciousness.
In this brief post I've intented to show that the FH theory, if correctly formulated, is testable. It doesn't imply that the FH is true; my point here was to show ways to test it, and refute the common view that only materialism is testable and, therefore, scientific. (Even if it were the case and, for the sake of the argument, we concede that only materialism is testable, what would happen if materialism is actually tested and found to be empirically false? That refutation would prove that dualism is a true empirical fact, not an hypothesis! And it would make the falsiability claim against dualism irrelevant and trivial, because the truth of dualism would be implied as an proven fact in the empirical refutation of materialism.)
Substance dualism, like other philosophical positions, has its problems; and we will address some of them in another posts.
The Filter Hypothesis have predictive power and, in principle, it's testable:
1)It predicts that materialism will fails to explain consciousness, because the latter is not a property (intrinsic or emergent) of matter. (Thus, if materialists could show, in a convincing way, that cerebral processes actually produce or cause consciousness, the FH would be falsified). That simple fact proves that the FH can be refuted.
For the time being, the prediction of FH about the fails of materialism to explain consciousness have been confirmed. According to David Chalmers: "Consciousness, the subjetive experience of an inner self, could be a phenomenon forever beyond the reach of neuroscience. Even a detailed knowledge of the brain's workings and the neural correlates of consciousness may fail to explain how or why human beings have self-aware minds" (Scientific American, 1997)
There are scientific reasons to believe why Chalmers is probably right. As argues physicist Marco Biagini: "The claim that the electric impulses in our brain are or generate sensations and thoughts, is in contradiction with the laws of physics that consider equivalent all electric impulses, inside or outside our brain. In fact, an electric impulse is formed only by some electrons moving in a certain direction; according to the laws of physics, electrons are all equal and indistinguishable, and they are always moving in every material or electric circuits. To ascribe to the electrons in our brain the property to generate consciousness, and not to ascribe the same property to the electrons moving in a bulb, is in contradiction with quantum physics, which establishes that all electrons are equal and indistinguishable, that is they have all exactly the same properties.
Besides, the laws of physics establish that electric impulses generate only electromagnetic fields; so the materialistic hypothesis that the electric impulses in the brain generate sensations, emotions and thoughts is in striking contradiction with the laws of physics. The electromagnetic waves generated by the electric impulses in our brain are absolutely equivalent to the ones generated by any other electric impulses; such waves go out of our brain and travel in the external space at the velocity of light, as every electromagnetic wave."
Materialists would have that show how consciousness is actually caused by (and not simply correleted with) electro-chemical processes in the brain. In that case, the FH would be refuted.
Given that consciousness-brain processes correlation/dependence is a prediction of both materialism and FH, that correlation can't be used as evidence for materialism and against FH or viceversa, because both hypotheses are confirmed by it. The choice between materialism and FH should be made considering the whole data available for us, and carefully examining which of these hypotheses fit better with them while being more parsimonous.
2)The FH predicts that consciousness have causal efficacy.
Current scientific evidence support that prediction:
-The placebo effect is, by definition, "a medical phenomena in which a person’s beliefs about an inert substance or a sham therapy results in that treatment having the expected consequences of those beliefs upon health. The placebo effect can also be an additional boost for a real therapy or drug beyond that warranted solely by its actual physiological action"
Note that the definition uses a subjetive aspect of consciousness (i.e. beliefs) as a causal trigger that produces consequences on the body (that is, beliefs have a causal power).
Clinical and Experimental evidence support that. According to this scientific study: "Our results indicate that placebo treatments of peripheral disease processes can affect physical parameters more easily and strongly than biochemical parameters. This differentiation holds true for both datasets we tested, i.e., conventional placebo-controlled clinical trials, and clinical trials that included a no-treatment arm. As a corollary, it follows that placebo-responsive subgroups may also be identified in datasets in which global averages conceal such specific responses.
Although much progress has been made in the past decade in understanding the biological basis of placebo effects in neurological conditions, e.g., pain and parkinsonian disease, the mechanisms that mediate placebo effects on peripheral organ systems still await to be further elucidated. The differential placebo responsiveness of physical versus biochemical parameters, as disclosed in the present study, offers a good starting point for theoretical considerations on possible mediating mechanisms, as well as for future investigations in this field"
That evidence is inconsistent with a well-known materialistic view that consciousness is "nothing but" a by-product of cerebral processes. If it were true, then the physical effects of the placebo effect couldn't to be caused by beliefs, because beliefs (as part of the subjetive phenomenon of consciousness) would be non-efficacious.
-Cognitive behavioural theraphy for the treatment of phobias entails that consciousness have a causal power. By definition, that therapy consist in "a psychotherapeutic approach that aims to influence problematic and dysfunctional emotions, behaviors and cognitions through a goal-oriented, systematic procedure. CBT can be seen as an umbrella term for therapies that share a theoretical basis in behavioristic learning theory and cognitive psychology, and that use methods of change derived from these theories"
Note that CBT definition considers it to be a "psycho"-therapeutic approach, not a neurological one. It entails that CBT therapy takes into account at least a subjetive aspect (the cognitive processes) as essential part of a therapy to produce certain effects (i.e. the cognitive processes have some kind of causal influence).
That confirms another prediction of the FH. If beliefs and conscious phenomena wouldn't have any causal efficacy at all, then the this prediction of FH would be refuted.
3)The filter hypothesis predicts (as possible) psi and afterlife phenomena. Actually, these phenomena are not necessarily implied in the FH, because it's logically possible to consciousness exists apart of the brain, but not manifest itself in the physical world after the physical death of the body.
Given that consciousness is not produced by the brain (and it is not identical with it), it exists with independence of a physical brain (but it's temporally related to the brain in biological organisms).
This point is more controversial, because the evidence for psi and even more for afterlife is not considered compelling by many scientists. However, the evidence exists (compelling or not), and skeptics like Ray Hyman and Susan Blackmore have admitted it. (For a detailed discussion and documentation, in a proper historical context, of the skeptics' admissions of psi evidence, see the book Parapsychology and the Skeptics by Chris Carter)
If evidence for psi or afterlife were non-existent (not only controversial, because it supposes that there is something interesting happening on psi experiments to be subject of controversy; but non-existent at all), then another (possible) predicition of the FH wouldn't be expected to be possible, and it would give us another reason to prefer other theories about consciousness.
In this brief post I've intented to show that the FH theory, if correctly formulated, is testable. It doesn't imply that the FH is true; my point here was to show ways to test it, and refute the common view that only materialism is testable and, therefore, scientific. (Even if it were the case and, for the sake of the argument, we concede that only materialism is testable, what would happen if materialism is actually tested and found to be empirically false? That refutation would prove that dualism is a true empirical fact, not an hypothesis! And it would make the falsiability claim against dualism irrelevant and trivial, because the truth of dualism would be implied as an proven fact in the empirical refutation of materialism.)
Substance dualism, like other philosophical positions, has its problems; and we will address some of them in another posts.
