It's literally like this:
Materialists/Physicalists: "The thoughts in your head come from your conditions and are ultimately the result of your organs and nervous system. Your consciousness is linked to your brain activity and other parts of your body interacting with the physical real world."
Dualists: "Ok but what if there were an imaginary zombie that has the same organs and molecular structure as a living person but somehow isn't alive on some metaphysical level. If this zombie is conceivable, that means it must be metaphysically true somehow."
Materialists: "That's circular and imaginary, isn't it?"
Other dualists: "Ok but what if I were in a swamp and lightning strikes a tree and magically creates a copy of me but it's not actually me because it doesn't have my soul."
Am I reading this stuff wrong or are these actually the best arguments for mind-body dualism
this is the mechanistic materialist position phrased slightly differently.
In my reading mechanistic materialism connotes ignoring the dialectical nature of something, in this case consciousness. I'm claiming that consciousness arises out of simpler material forces, but as a complex entity with properties that are new and distinct from its parts, and is then able to plug back in and act upon the material.
But it's very possible I'm using the wrong words or have a limited understanding of the concept.
This is the main framing I've seen of physicalism. What's the "normal" account?
I don't think anybody really knows. There's like 10 strains of physicalism and they all use slightly different words to say the same thing. The only one that says something slightly different is physicalist panpsychism that states consciousness is stored in the
ballsatoms.