Thanks, that’s a helpful clarification. Even on those terms, the analogy still makes no sense, for the reason you pointed out: If we fiddle around with the electronic innards of the radio, this has no effect on the radio waves that are external to it. Fiddling with the innards of the radio is the equivalent of giving a person a general anesthetic. The analogy was supposed to explain why giving an anesthetic has such a profound effect on consciousness. Instead, it illustrates why, under dualism, we would expect it to have no effect.
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Yes, but I think that so far as the analogy holds, the actual direction is the reverse in terms of dependency, and that it is consciousness that is the receiver which arises from processes in the nervous system. But the analogy fails to capture the continuity.
If there is any truth in the radio/signal analog, a consequence would be that there is no a priori reason why we couldn’t invent a receiver tuned to these signals ourselves. In other words, this analogy leads to a reasonable expectation that eventually we will be able to construct conscious machines.
Are the dualists ok with that?
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On a related note there’s just something deeply ad-hoc about this idea that the brain is required to filter/decrypt, or otherwise process the immaterial soul signal.
Why would the system function in this way? The idea doesn’t seem to be well motivated in the first place, as a theory of the nature of the relationship between the brain and the mind. I just can’t shake this feeling that it is being provided as a rationalization, to try to explain away why we can lose or alter conscious experiences through all sorts of physical/chemical influences on the brain and body.
And then there is the glaring interaction problem. The idea is that some sort of mind-signal is being transmitted by the soul, or some other entity, itself completely undetectable by any means known to science. It doesn’t show up in the most sensitive particle accelerators, it can’t be shown to be able to move or alter the trajectory of even a single electron, or a photon of light.
Dualists are free to make up whatever rules they want, since they have no reason to make their beliefs consistent with scientific observation. So if they are not OK with that, they can simply say that consciousness can only be “received” by things made out of meat.
They’ll then have to explain why a sirloin steak cannot be conscious, but I’m sure they can revise the rulebook to accommodate that, as well.
Let me raise another thing that puzzles me about dualism: When people describe near-death or out of body experiences, they invariably speak in terms of their senses being embodied. That is to say, even if they say they were floating in the air looking down on their body, they still describe a sense of being in a body, just not the same one they are looking down on. And they still experience the world as through their eyes and ears and other sense organs. Things seem to be in front of them, or behind them, etc. This supposedly disembodied consciousness is still spatially localized. Why would that be? Why would they not, instead, experience the world in a completely different way other than thru seeing, hearing and feeling? That is to say, why would they still experience the world as mediated thru the body, if the mind has now been freed from the body?
Is it clear what I’m asking?