Consciousness Trilemma

[Whateverist]

First of all, so far as I can tell, eliminativism isn't a theory of mind.  It's a theory of nope-not-that.  You can say, for example, that morality, free will, and a sense of self are illusory because it doesn't "map" to any locatable physical system, process or property.  What you can't say is what it is like to experience moral ideas and feelings, and why that should matter.

The sense of it is that we are clearly highly social animals, and that our social behaviors are mediated by emotions, experiences and ideas.  Claiming that this-or-that feeling is illusory leaves a void-- you have to explain why we DO behave certain ways, and hopefully be able to establish some sense of how we SHOULD behave.

I can pretty simply explain moral ideas in subjective terms-- mothers feel great pain at the idea of harm coming to their offspring, and so they will struggle very hard to avoid that happening.  Where does eliminativism stand on ANY description of any part of humanity except nitpicking about what consciousness-is-not, what love-is-not, what self-is-not and so on?

Eliminative materialim isn't going to tell you how you should feel about anything, or why some x should matter.  Honestly, you're going to feel the way you do regardless, right?

Someone needs to give you an "amen" right here. Not even sure why would anyone want to reason to what they ought to feel. Is that even possible? By all means, reason to what you ought to do about how you feel - you know, develop the capacity for some delayed reaction. But the feeling is determinative, not determinable. Even if you always act on what you reason your way to what you think is the best course of action, that reasoning will be guided by feeling.
 

Void?  This is like claiming that the person who establishes that dragons don't exist has to fill the void they leave behind.  There were never dragons to begin with.  There is no void, all is exactly as it was before.  

Eliminative materialism is a position on how the brain might achieve these things.  A position on what is or is not true with regards to that operation.  That's it, that's all.

Amen, brother Khem. Preach it!