Is evidentialism a dead philosophy?

[Angrboda]

You have evidence of other minds? I'd like to see that. I don't think it's provable by evidence that other people have conscious experience, but we believe it anyway. Also, we can prove that other humans have cognitive abilities, I'm a physicalist so I think that consciousness is a product of cognition, but I'm having a hard time seeing how we could actually prove with evidence that is the case. I've tried arguing with evidence found from neuroscience that our consciousness is the product of physical processes, but they won't budge. He says that just proves 'actions' are depended on brain activity, not that that physical processes actually give rise to consciousness. I think it logically follows from physicalism that if we can prove a person has cognitive functions, this proves they have consciousness. But I'm having a hard time trying to prove physicalism, and this religious person I am arguing with is not even trying to make a case for a soul.

You don't need to prove physicalism to show that we have 'evidence' for other minds. All you need is the hypothesis that your consciousness is a behavior you have as a result of your biology. We can provide evidence for this belief, without needing to prove it. We know that imbibing alcohol changes the way our consciousness behaves. Drugs can also affect your mind. And we have evidence that our biological nature is responsible for our complex behaviors. Animals, human or not, display complex behaviors. Rocks and tables do not. A computer, a type of complex thinking organism, also displays complex behaviors by virtue of its nature. Thus we have evidence that our biology gives rise to complex behaviors. We have evidence that our mind is a complex behavior that is dependent on our biology. We also have evidence that others share the same biology which we possess. Thus, it is reasonable, given the evidence, to hypothesize that others who share the same biology as us, and given that our complex behavior of mind appears dependent on biology, we have 'evidence' that these other beings have minds like us. (Evidence, not proof.)