First off, dualism: In the realm of philosophy, dualism is the opinion/view that your mind is not part of your brain. That you have a brain, and you have a mind, and somehow they are different/seperate.
Substance dualism: one version of the above opinion/view, where the "somehow" part is explain by claiming that your mind is made out of a some kind of fundamentally different substance than ordinary material stuff.
recap
dualism = mind and body (brain) are separate
substance dualism = mind and body (brain) are separate cuz they are made out of fundamentally different substances.
I'm sure some arm chair philosopher (who is getting a degree in thinking hard about being unemployed) will post a whole page of complaints about what I've said.
anyway it's hard to make an argument for something I feel is total BS, but I'll try
:
Substance dualism provides a framework where one can easily believe the soul is real; and that you an immortal, beautiful, and unique snowflake.
My argument against it: Well if your just going to make up new substances. How about "triple-ism": Yeah, that's right, a third fundamentally different substance! And this new substance composes your super mind and your super soul. But if you act now, you can get "quadruple-ism": with a 4th substance, and super, super mind, and super, super soul (and so on, just keeping adding fundamentally new types of substances, minds, and souls until you get tired)!
This post was edited by Azrad on Oct 4 2013 04:19pm