Seeing red

[bennyboy]

You see a lack of a mind in objects ignoring that you yourself are an object, but we aren't discussing "objects" - we are discussing things which behave as we behave, which -seem- the way we -seem-.  

An object is really relative to a subjective agent-- one observes something. So from my perspective, I am not an object. My body is. My ideas are, perhaps. I'm not. I'm the "who" who is looking at and experiencing things. When you say I'm an object, you are conflating the human body with the human experience, and those things are clearly not equal quantities.

I find it easy to see mind in those things which act in the manners that we do, upon those metrics which -you and I both- accept some notion of mind.  Why, Benny...why do you think that I have a mind, why do you allow me this attribute?  What makes you think I have qualia, and why do you think (as I know you do) that my qualia and your qualia are similar??  The answer to these questions can -only- be an affirmation of my espoused positions - even if they are wrong as a matter of fact.  

I have deeply-entrenched philosophical assumptions, assumptions I've made for as long as I can remember. However, I can see that my assumptions are soon to be challenged. For example, there could be many Cyber-rhythms in the near future who make convincing arguments but aren't people. There could be androids in a couple hundred years which cannot be distinguished from people.

Given that, I must now challenge my own assumptions: that what walks like a human with a mind and talks like a human with a mind is either human or has a mind.

In truth you and I have no difference here...we both think that the same thing is going on with regards to mind (we merely point to different "stuff" as the culprit), as we've discussed before. Acknowledging this, however, will not allow you to assert your idealism as a better explanation than my materialism.  Regardless, I appreciate our disagreement and our ability to disagree and still be noob crushing buddies simultaneously. Rare round these parts.

#intellectual bromance.  I joined these boards to have discussions like this with people like you.  Who are we, why are we we....as we are, and what does that mean?

As for idealism: it's not really an explanation for anything. It's more simply a sensible set arrangement. A material world view really has no sensible explanation for the mind. However, an idealistic world view can include and subsume all of the material world view, because the material world view is experienced by us purely as ideas anyway.

When you look in that microscope, are you actually experiencing a bacterium? No, you're experiencing the sensation of light, presumably as processed by the coordinated efforts of several brain structures. But your experience of the microscope is an idea. So is the experience of your science professor, of reading a book about science, etc. It's all, from the perspective of a subjective agent, just ideas anyway. So idealism requires no extension, but rather the retraction of an unprovable philosophical assumption-- that everything is as it seems to be. Whether we're in the Matrix, or the Mind of God, or a BIJ, or a real physical universe is irrelevant to us, so long as our experience of sensations and ideas has enough coherence for us to develop a world view and live our lives.

As for bromance. . . buy me beer, not flowers. Just saying.