Occams Hatchet and Is Materialism "Special"

[bennyboy]

I'm sorry, the best evidence we have suggests this is the case.  You think it's question begging, it's not, but it wouldn't matter if it were....because it's -still- the suggestion of the best evidence we have.  

"Best evidence" seems to amount to "Our theory isn't actually provable, and requires philosophical assumptions to even get off the ground, but it sounds more sciencey than what you're saying."

What's your evidence that anything experiences qualia? It laughs at the right jokes? It leaks salty water when it watches Beaches? I want to know what "best evidence" you have that isn't 100% rooted in philosophical assumptions that beg the question.

[about observing and drawing inferences]. . .Which is what we've done, regardless of whether or not you find them convenient, amenable, or satisfying.

Here is the essence of our difference. You are convinced by commonalities in your experiences that there's a material universe with such and such properties, and you are ready to "move on" to the next issue. I am not so convinced, even by the commonalities which are consistent enough to do science on, that it is right to move on to that view of the world; in fact, I believe it to be highly suspect. It seems to me that since all of what we "know" can definitely be coined purely as idea and experience that the belief that it's "really really out there" doesn't add much.

We aren't really disputing experience, OR even the worth of science. We have different, and I think very arbitrary, positions on how many assumptions, and of what type, we should accept in moving on to new avenues of inquiry.