What is it about the mind’s being unextended that seems to enable it to exercise free will in a scientifically predictable universe?

Mind and Matter Mind-matter dualism: matter = material = physical Reality is divided into two basic types of things:

unextended (minds, mental objects and processes), and extended (matter, or material/physical objects & processes)

M ental things: unex tended and private M aterial things: ex tended and public

“private” N o tw o people can ex perience one and the sam e pain. Only I can feel m y pain. This feature of the m ental m ak es the epistem ological w orries about how w e k now anything about the w orld around us m ore acute I nteractionism : (Descartes’ view – known as “Cartesian dualism”):

Extended & unextended things and processes causally interact:

there are material (or physical) causes of mental effects, and mental causes of physical effects.

Interactionist account: Example: Deciding to raise your hand 1. The mental decision

– an unextended event in the unextended mind – causes physical activity in the extended brain and body (neurons firing, electrical/chemical changes in brain). 2. This physical activity causes activity elsewhere in the extended body and nervous system, activating muscles which raise the arm and hand. 3. Information is relayed back via activity in the extended nervous system and sense organs to the brain,

which, in turn causes the unextended mind to experience sense-data (unextended mental appearances) of the arm moving.

Mental/ Mind “raise hand”- direct exper- visual/felt thought iences of sense-data in mind bodily activity of them rising physical physical hand & arm command to effects on rise raise hand body and arm Physical/ Body-Brain

Epistem ological problem s:

The unextended mind and its contents can only be directly experienced or known to that mind:

Only I can feel my pains: two people can feel similar pains, but they cannot feel one and the same pain. And only I can know for sure what thoughts I’m having.

However, this makes it unclear how we manage to have any knowledge about the extended world outside of our minds Problems for social science: If they rely on people’s thoughts to explain behavior, their basic data is not publicly accessible But access by more than one person

seems essential for scientific reliability

That is: More than one person must be able to see the data But only one person can access thought-data

social scientists cannot get direct access to the content of their subjects’ minds.

This + free will limit social-science predictions!

M etaphysical problem s: The definition of matter as extended and mind as unextended makes minds “free” in a way which makes it hard to understand how they have any causal impact on the world of extended objects.

We don’t understand how minds exercise their free will in controlling what bodies do.

How do they cause bodies to move. (Ryle’s “ghost-in-the-machine” problem)

Also, we don’t understand how neurophysiological processes give rise to thoughts, pains, etc. But most worries center on mind-to-matter problem –that is the “ghost-in-the machine” problem.

Mental/ Mind “raise hand”- direct exper- visual/felt thought iences of sense-data in mind bodily activity of them rising physical physical hand & arm command to effects on rise raise hand body and arm Physical/ Body-Brain