NEUROPSYCHIATRIC DISORDERS AND EMERGENT SUBSTANCE DUALISM

Abstract

Despite the numerous reasons of substance dualists on the immaterial existence of the mind, which according to them is the true self and soul, various contradictory theories have emerged about it by observing the effects of neurological disorders on mental states and personality traits. These theories can be classified into three kinds: those that deny the survival of the immaterial existence of the self/mind/soul, those that deny its immaterial substantiality, and those that consider its existence as a delusion. Meanwhile, substance dualists often suggest the theory of instrumentalism, which is prone to errors. However, a more accurate solution has been suggested that acknowledges emergent substance dualism and considers the hierarchical dependence of the emergent soul on the body. In proportion to the development and complexity of the body and the neural complex system, various levels of the soul (from the vegetative level to existence in itself for itself the autonomous human rational soul) and proportionate mental properties emerge. At all levels, the body has bottom-top causality for the soul, and its function or malfunction. The dependence of the soul at lower levels on the body is essential (intrinsic), and bodily injuries can destroy this level of the soul essentially; the dependence of ‘in itself and for itself existence’ of the rational soul (autonomous level) upon the body is accidental. Because of these intrinsic and accidental emergentist co-dependences of the body and soul/mind substance, various neural injuries can cause mental disorders to emerge as disturbing properties for the soul/mind substance. Such injuries can also submerge some (intact) mental emergent properties. So, the simple, in-itself-for-itself, autonomous, or separable existence of the soul/ mind-substance (after the destruction of the body) is intact from the accidental disturbing emergent properties of the body and intrinsically is hostage to what it has earned voluntarily and consciously. © 2024, Ecozone, OAIMDD. All rights reserved.