Hylemorphic dualism

[Reivax]

As a skeptic, I am open to all ideas and will accept them if they are supported with strong evidence, if not, I will continue to remain skeptical until evidence is provided.

I understand the objections to both property dualism and substance dualism very well, but I recently came across hylemorphic dualism and was interested in the arguments for and against this position. While this position is a lot less recognized, it is based on Aristotle's hylomorphism and was later modified by Thomas Aquinas. Proponents such as Edward Feser have posted extensively on this interpretation of consciousness, however, I don't have the philosophical understanding to decipher, let alone answer the claims of the article.

Has anyone come across this position before, and what do people think?

Thanks in advance

 

[Irony]

It seems to me to be entirely based around redefining materialism into something that no actual materialist believes, as though it's completely beyond the realm of materialist philosophy to recognize that patterns exist and the pattern of something is different than the individual bits taken in isolation.

 

[Soapy Sam]

The purpose of explanation is to explain.

What , exactly, does this explain?

 

[marplots]

Here is the main claim from the article:

What A-T denies, again, is that the neurological level of description, however necessary, can ever suffice to account for intellectual activity.

It's one I'd dispute. One example would be holistic seeming flock behavior based on individual choices made by flock members. I think emergence does address this argument well and set it aside. The flock actually is constructed of recursive interactions between unthinking members and can be understood (and mathematically generated) from a few simple rules applied at the level of individual birds. The idea of a holistic intelligence is illusory.

When he talks about an image of a triangle not representing the concept in general (but only a specific triangle) I would dispute that as well. He says it is necessary, but not sufficient. I'd point out that if I had never seen a triangle in my life, you could communicate the concept -- the full concept -- by drawing one for me. In fact, at least for me, all my thoughts about triangles start with a proto-type mental image: point up, dark lines, white background. From there, I manipulate it mentally in exactly the same way I would if it were present in front of me on a piece of paper. Furthermore, the idea is "capturable" (while a squiggly scribble isn't) because I actually do have hard wiring in my brain that responds to triangles, at least as much as I have sensors on my fingers that respond to heat but not greenish-brown.

The sufficiency argument is worth thinking about, but until we get that zombie AI of lore, it's going to be darn hard to test.