Chapter XI

"So you're Hermione," said Wynton who thought Hermione was a salty potato. "Hi!" Hermione smiled, holding her tray with a grilled chicken sandwich, waffle fries, and lemonade. She sat down at the table with Wynton, along with Greg and Harry.

"I'm Wynton. I 'spects Greg told you I'm the big bad atheist materialist."

"Ha! Well, he did say you were a naturalist."

"I hesitate to stick that label on myself because everybody defines it differently, and I don't want to be pigeon holed."

"What is your point of view, then?" Hermione asked.

Greg was delighted that the conversation was already taking off. He and Harry just watched.

"I mean, I don't deny abstract objects, like numbers and propositions, and the laws of logic. But those are all abstract things. They're not concrete things. When it comes to real substantial concrete things, I think the physical world is probably all that exists. And by 'the physical world,' I mean everything in the universe that is describable by the laws of physics and chemistry."

"But not biology?" Harry asked, being a bit cheeky.

"Well, I mean," Wynton began, taking Harry's question seriously, "even biology is explainable in terms of physics and chemistry."

"So basically, you don't believe in spirits, ghosts, phantoms, gods, angels, or anything supernatural, right?" said Hermione.

"Right," said Wynton. "Nothing beyond the physical universe. But you do?"

"Yeah," answered Hermione. "I guess you could say I'm basically a Cartesian dualist. I mean I know there are other kinds of dualism, and honestly I don't have the details all worked out, but I do believe some kind of dualism is true."

"Property dualism is consistent with naturalism, so maybe we're not that far apart," Wynton observed.

"I don't know what property dualism is," Hermione said.

"Property dualism is the idea that there are fundamentally two different kinds of properties that a substance can have—physical properties and mental properties. Both properties are had by the same physical brain. The difference is that in substance dualism, there are actually two different kinds of substances—material and immaterial. So if you were a property dualist, you could believe that only physical objects exist, but these physical objects could have two very different kinds of properties. A substance dualist believes that since there are two different kinds of substances—brains and souls—that they are separable. So you could have something like ghosts since a person's spirit could leave their body at death."

"Oh, well I'm definitely a substance dualism, then," Hermione said. "But there are different kinds of substance dualism, like Thomistic dualism, which I don't fully understand. But I'm happy to say I'm a Cartesian dualist. I do believe we are something like ghosts in machines."

"You guys have already lost me," Harry lamented before biting into his chicken sandwich. Greg ate his waffle fries and didn't say a word, but listened intently.

"So why," asked Hermione, "are you a physicalist, or materialist, or naturalist, or whatever you want to be called?"

"I don't need labels. We all agree there's a physical world out there, right? We share it. We're both sitting at a physical table eating physical food, and we can talk to and even touch each other if we want." Wynton wanted to touch Hermione at that very moment. She was a proper salt. But he contented himself with touching the air around him, sculpting precise explanatory objects that nobody could actually see but Wynton. "Science can, in principle, explain it all without having to resort to anything supernatural. Granted, there are things we haven't figured out yet, but as science progresses, each gap in our knowledge that we used to fill with the supernatural gets closed with a natural explanation. So I think the supernatural is superfluous. I'm not saying the supernatural isn't possible, but the burden of proof is on those who say it exists. While I can experience the physical world with my five senses, I see no evidence of the supernatural. I have other reasons, but what do you think so far?"

"I can see where you're coming from," Hermione replied, "but I think there are some things that science can't explain, and those things do provide good evidence for the existence of immaterial souls."

"Like what?"

"Consciousness. I want to hear some of your other reasons before we go into that, though."

"Okay. Well, I think the biggest problem with substance dualism is the interaction problem."

"I don't see that as a problem."

"It is a problem because there's no interface between the material and the immaterial. Think about it. The physical world is composed of matter, and energy. That means the non-physical world must be immaterial. The non-physical world is everything the physical world is not. Now, let's say you want to move something in the physical world. An object, like a rubber ball, that is sitting at rest has zero kinetic energy. But if it were caused to move by something else, then it will have gained kinetic energy. Where did that energy come from? It had to have come from another part of the physical universe. That means only something else physical could've caused it to move. If something non-physical caused it to move, then how did it do it?"

"Maybe ghosts can create energy out of nothing."

"That's a radical idea, and it violates the first law of thermodynamics."

"Why should a physical law apply to something non-physical?"

"The first law isn't just a physical law. Well, it is a physical law, but it's based on a meta-physical principle. Something cannot come from nothing."

"But spirits aren't nothing."

"They are not physical, though. They have no energy of their own to impart. They are not made of energy, so they can't impart energy." Wynton watched Hermione's quizzical face, wondering what she might say next, wondering what her lips might feel like, feeling a bit elated that his argument seemed to stump her.

Finally, Hermione said, "I don't know how anything causes anything, to be honest with you. But we don't have to know how something happens before we can know that it happens. We can know that something happens by observing it while being flummoxed about how it happens."

"We can't observe a spirit causing chemical reactions in the brain."

"Right, but see what you think about this argument. This is an argument that shows that the mind or self is distinct from the body. In other words, you are not your body, but you live in it. If I can show you that, wouldn't it prove that there must be causal interaction between the material brain and the immaterial self without necessarily showing how that interaction takes place?"

"Maybe. But the evidence would have to be pretty strong because we would have to say that in spite of the interaction problem which suggests an impossibility, it appears to happen anyway."

"Alright, then." Hermione gathered her thoughts. "Would you agree with me that instead of being a human, you could've been a dog or a cat?"

"Uh." Wynton wanted to know where Hermione was going. He was afraid if he disagreed at this point it would derail her train of thought, but her statement seemed obviously false to him. "Not if my parents weren't dogs or cats. I came together as a result of a particular sperm and eggs. If that particular sperm and egg hadn't come together, I wouldn't exist."

"Let me put it another way. Suppose you went to bed one night a human being, but you woke up in a cat body. Your mind was perfectly in tact just like it always had been, but now you're a cat. Or maybe God created you instantaneously as a cat. Who cares? The point is, you, Wynton, are a cat."

"Okay."

"Would you agree that's possible?"

"Maybe in the broadly logical sense. I don't know if it's physically possible."

"Logical possibility is all I need. It's just a thought experiment. With that being the case, there is something true about you that is not true about your body. It's possible for you to have a cat body, but it's not possible for a human body to be a cat body. So if it's even possible that you could be a cat, then you are not your human body."

"Do you really think that's a good argument?"

"Yeah. I mean it's the indiscernibility of identicals. If A and B are the same thing, then whatever is true of one must be true of the other. So if you are the same thing as your body, then whatever is true of you must be true of your body, and vice versa. But since there is something true of you that is not true of your body, then you are not your body. And if you are not your body, then you are something non-physical. You, yourself, are a ghost in a machine."

"That strikes me as being a question-begging argument."

"Why? It's perfectly reasonable. It follows from the law of identity."

"Because the only way there could be a possible world in which I am a cat is if I am not identical to my human body. By raising that possibility in one of the premises of your argument, you're already assuming what you're trying to prove. If I am, in fact, identical to my body, then there is no possible world in which I'm a cat."

"But you are not your physical body. Think about it. How old are you?"

"Twenty."

"So you've been around for twenty years, right?"

"Right."

"But your body is in a constant state of change. All the cells in your body get replaced within about ten years. The body you have now is not the body you had more than ten years ago. I mean, obviously your grown body is not the same body you had when you were a baby. But you yourself have been here all along. So you are not your body."

Wynton realized that he even liked the sound of Hermione's voice, but he shook it off. "I don't think that follows. I mean I've changed right along with my body. There's continuity from my infant body to the body I have now. It's not like one body got tossed aside and I stepped into another one."

"But if you were nothing but your physical body, and you replaced all the parts, then you'd have a different body, wouldn't you?"

"It depends. If I replace them one at a time gradually, then each new part would become part of my body. And each part I lost would cease to be part of my body. But I would just continue to be whatever was my body at the time."

"Would you say the same thing about a wooden ship in which you replaced each part, one at a time, until there were no original parts left?"

"Yeah, probably."

"But suppose you replaced each wooden part with a piece of cardboard. After replacing all the parts, you've got a cardboard ship. There's no wooden ship. Are you telling me this cardboard ship is the exact same ship as the original wooden ship?"

"Look," Wynton said, "the whole idea of a self that endures through time and change is really just a construct. There is no essential self. There's just what we call Hermione or Greg or. . .what was your name?" he asked looking at Harry.

"Harry."

"Harry." He continued to address Hermione. "The fact that we have this causal continuity of physical parts in one body we call Harry or whoever, and Harry has these memories from his past, doesn't mean that Harry is essentially something distinct from his body. People are kind of like ocean waves. As a wave propagates through water, that wave is continuously being made up of different water molecules. So the parts of the wave are constantly being changed out, but it's still the same wave. A person is really just a wave that rides on top of an ever-changing material. If you want to say a person continues to exist through changes, that's how it happens. But that means the person is not separable from the material. You can't separate the wave from the water. So there can't be ghosts that exist apart from the physical body."

Hermione was finding the conversation tedious, but she didn't want to give up just yet. "We could probably talk about this some more. . ."

Wynton liked the sound of that.

". . .but I want to run a different argument by you and see what you'll say."

"Okay," Wynton agreed.

"If all we are is material stuff, and material stuff is just obeying the laws of physics and chemistry, then all of our behavior can be exhaustively explained in mechanical terms. That means it's possible for there to be a world exactly like ours, including all the conversations that go on and all the physiological stuff like crying during sad movies, but without anything mental happening at all."

"You're talking about philosophical zombies." Wynton leaned forward as if ready for a response.

"Wait," said Harry. "What kind of zombie?"

"A philosophical zombie," Wynton replied. "It's a thought experiment in philosophy."

"So we're not talking about real brain-eating zombies?"

"They're like brain-eating zombies in that neither is conscious. Neither has a mind. But whereas ordinary zombies are rotting corpses walking around eating brains, philosophical zombies look and act just like you and me."

"I'd sooner believe in philosophical zombies than brain-eating zombies," Harry said.

"Why?" Wynton asked.

"Because how is a zombie going to get inside your hard scull to eat your brain? You'd need tools to do that, and zombies are too stupid to use tools."

Wynton laughed.

"Anyway," Hermione said to Wynton, "you know about philosophical zombies. If everything that happens is just particles in motion interacting with each other, then there's really no place for the mental to do anything. Our behavior would be exactly the same even if there was nothing mental behind it."

"That would lead to solipsism," Wynton said, "because you couldn't know if anybody you were talking to was really conscious or was just a philosophical zombie."

"Yes," Hermione said with an unsure look about her. "I don't know if you're agreeing with me or if you're offering that as a rebuttal. "

"Would you agree with me that solipsism is absurd, or at least unlivable?"

"Sure."

"Then you've got to agree that the thought experiment is absurd, in which case it doesn't carry any weight in this argument." Wynton sat back again.

"You may be misunderstanding me. I agree that solipsism is absurd. The whole notion of philosophical zombies is absurd. But that's just the point. Materialism leads to the possibility of philosophical zombies. If materialism leads to an absurdity, then there's something wrong with materialism."

"Oh, I see what you're saying."

Hermione thought at last that maybe she had scored a point. She waited for Wynton's response.

"Philosophical zombies may be possible for all we know," Wynton said, "but I don't think you can use them to adjudicate between materialism and dualism without begging the question against materialism. Philosophical zombies may not be possible in actuality. If the mind is caused to exist by the structure and activity of the brain, then you couldn't have that exact same structure and activity in a different world without having the exact same effect. If minds are the effects of brains in this world, then minds would exist in any possible world in which the exact same physical processes were taking place."

Hermione was a little frustrated at this point. "It doesn't matter whether the scenario is physically possible or not," she said. "Remember, it's just a thought experiment. It's not meant to show that everybody around you might be a philosophical zombie. Rather, it's meant to show that given materialism, the mind plays no roll in our behavior. At most, the mind is a by-product of physical processes. Our mouths may move, and our legs may carry us about, but it's not because we want to. It's not because we choose to move our body parts. The sense we have of choosing would just be an illusion created by our brains."

"I don't see how that follows," Wynton said. "It sounds like you're talking about epiphenomenalism. I don't think materialism leads to epiphenomenalism." Wynton found the conversation riveting, but he wondered how he might segue into something that might eventually lead to a date. As much as he disagreed with Hermione, her mind was just as much of a turn on as her looks.

Hermione noticed that Wynton had only stated his position but had not offered an argument to go along with it. Maybe he was tired of the conversation. She didn't want to press the argument further, and she didn't want to bring up any new arguments when it didn't seem to her that this one had been answered. Still, it bothered her that she couldn't convince him with philosophical arguments alone because she knew good and well there were ghosts. If only Fred were here, she thought. Fred would have some fun with Wynton. Finally, she said, "What if I told you I had seen a ghost?"

Harry was taken aback by this move by Hermione. Was she about to enlist him to back her up? He hoped not.

Wynton cocked his head and responded, "I'd like to know how you knew it was a ghost you were seeing."

"How do you know that anything you see is what you're seeing? If it looks like a ghost and goes 'Boo!' like a ghost, then it might as well be a ghost, right?"

"Do ghosts really go 'Boo!'?"

"I'm sure they can say 'Boo!' just as easily as you can."

"But they don't have mouths or voice boxes."

"Why do you say that?"

"Well, they've left their physical bodies behind, haven't they?"

"Hmm. That's an interesting point."

"How can a ghost appear to you anyway? To appear, they have to be manifest in the physical world."

"I don't know how they do it; I just know they do. I have, in fact, seen ghosts and even conversed with them."

Harry and Greg both resisted the urge to plant their faces in their palms.

"I don't mean to be offensive," Wynton said, "and I don't deny that you saw something. I just don't think it was a ghost you were seeing. I don't believe in them." Wynton was trying not to be abrasive because he was developing a little crush on Hermione.

"Other people have seen them, too. People who were with me. We saw them at the same time."

Un oh, Harry thought. Here it comes.

Wynton said, "I don't know what to make of that. But we were just arguing from pure reason about souls—something accessible to both of us. When that didn't work out, you resorted to personal experience—something accessible only to you. That isn't fair. How can I respond to a personal experience that I have no way of looking into?"

"You're perfectly within your rights in not believing me, but I know what I know. Maybe we are at an impasse."

"I think we are. Show me a ghost, and maybe I'll have something more to say about it. Until then, or until you can make a better philosophical case, I think I'll go with what my own sense of reason seems to indicate."

"Fair enough," Hermione said.

Harry was a bit embarrassed for Hermione but relieved that she didn't drag him into it.

Neither Wynton nor Hermione had touched a bite of their food. They were both engrossed in the conversation. Now that it appeared to be over, Wynton hoped to find an excuse to meet up with Hermione at another time, but bless his heart, he couldn't think of one, and like Ron for so many years, Wynton lacked the courage to ask Hermione out or to even get her phone number.