Alvin Plantinga is an American philosopher, currently the John A. O'Brien Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame. He is known for his work in epistemology, metaphysics, and the philosophy of religion, and in particular for applying the methods of analytic philosophy to defend Christian belief.
Recently, he has written about philosophy of mind topics, especially in his paper Against Materialism.
In this clip, Plantinga argues for the ontological distinctness of mind and body on the basis of modal properties and the identity of indiscernibles (i.e. Leibniz's law).
Leibniz's law is a test for identity. According to it, for any entities x and y, if x and y are identical (they are really the same thing - there is only one thing you are talking about, not two), then any truth that applies to x will apply to y as well.
Therefore, if between x and y there is at least ONE difference, then you know that x and y are not identical. (Can you think about at least one difference between consciousness and the brain?)
Links o f interest:
-Eugene Wigner's paper on the scientific case for dualism.
-Chris Carter's paper on consciousness.
.Marco Biagini's paper on the scientific contradictions of materialism.
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