(May 28, 2017 at 11:36 pm)Hammy Wrote: The correct answer to the problem is that there's one type of stuff, it's all physical, it's all existent and some of it gives rise to consciousness. Even the cognitive illusions exist within the physical brain in the form of neurons. They just don't represent something real in external objective reality. Cognition itself cannot be an illusion... because cognition itself has to at least seem to be something and it really does seem however it really seems to seem.It sounds like you are almost quoting Khemical, based on my past conversations with him. I'm surprised you've ended on opposite sides of this discussion (though tbh I haven't read much of it yet).
I'm not so sure about the physical monism. It seems to me that since 100% of my knowledge comes through my personal experiences, I must be agnostic on anything outside that experience-- for example about the nature of what entities or system might be behind it.
Furthermore, given a physical monism, I'd also say that not only are there no THINGS in a physical monism which are not allowed for by the nature of the universe, there are no PROPERTIES which are not specifically allowed for, either, including the capacity for physical systems to be aware. Mind didn't "just happen" as a byproduct of material interactions. If there were no photons, there couldn't be the properties of light frequency or any sense of color. And if there were no (fill in the blank), there couldn't be the capacity for awareness, in the brain or anywhere else.
In short, the brain might be the proximate cause of awareness, but there is something more ingrained into our reality that is the ultimate cause, and that is a non-trivial issue considering that we have absolutely no ability to determine whether a given physical system has awareness or not.
