Occams Hatchet and Is Materialism "Special"

[bennyboy]

There are two ideas here:

1) The brain is solely responsible for consciousness and intelligence.
2) Consciousness and intelligence are a product of something non-material.

In my opinion, these options are neither mutually exclusive nor sufficiently inclusive of all the possibilities.

For example, it may be that the fundaments of mind are intrinsic to ALL matter, at all levels.

It's also possible that the entire physical universe is really an idealistic one, and that the way we perceive it is symbolic, rather than representative of a material "reality." Actually, I'd argue that modern science demonstrates for sure that reality is not as we perceive it.