Occams Hatchet and Is Materialism "Special"

[bennyboy]

Is your experience of qualia just an assumption?  If not, then stop.  The science is science regardless of whether or not you appreciate or agree with it's conclusions.  It's fine to be opposed to them, it's ludicrous to argue that they are not what they are.  

Science is the process of observation and inference. You cannot observe someone's qualia. Therefore, the "science" of qualia isn't that. It's actually the science of material correlates TO qualia: brain function, reports of experiences, facial expression, etc. I know that you will just define "qualia" as "the brain function of experience," but that begs the question. Conflation of terms isn't science, it's just conflation.

It's obvious that you cannot accept what science has to say about qualia, our minds, or our brains...but that you also feel the need to be considered by yourself and others as a scientific and rational person.

The problem is that science doesn't require you to take a stance on the ultimate nature of reality in order to do it. Whether we're in the Mind of God, or the Matrix, or a BIJ, or a real material monism, science is the process of making observations and drawing inferences.

 Faced with this impossible dilemma, you seem to think that the only way to maintain the integrity of your position and your self appraisal, is to claim that the offending body of science simply doesn't exist, that it's "not-science".  Can you recognize the absurdity of this situation, and of your suggestion?

Yay! This thread is apparently about me. I revel in your obsession with what I think or feel. Let's hug it out!

OFC it's science, you just don't agree with it.  Internalize that, own it.  Stop trying to rationalize your way around it.

Science is about making observations and drawing inferences. You cannot see the magical unicorn in my dreams; you can see only the brain functions involved, and ask me in the morning what they mean. You might eventually learn that when certain neural chains light up, that means I'm dreaming about unicorns.

You say we can do science of the mind. I say we do science on neural correlates, given philosophical assumptions about the nature of brain and mind. However, in a philosophical argument about the nature of mind, this isn't going to get you very far unless everyone agrees to those same philosophical assumptions.

It's not even that you're wrong. It's that you are willing to make assumptions that are not even necessary to make.