Atheism feels shunned...

[Purple Rabbit]

I never said it was the same. I'm saying there's no reason to believe that there's anything extra (to mechanics) - if there's no evidence for it. As I said.

I know of no evidence for anything other than the mechanical, so I - at least currently - believe that to believe otherwise is superfluous.

EvF

If you really want to stay close to evidence it is more correct to state that the 'I' exists not that 'I' IS mechanical. In the end there is no hard evidence of the material nature of our world because everything (also in the materialistic view) is experienced indirectly. Experience of 'I' comes first to everything. So if you assert that 'I' is a product of of the mechanical and that all follows from there, then in fact you are reversing claim and evidence. The mechanical does not follow from the experience of 'I'. The purest thing to say is that there'no reason to believe that there's anything extra to 'I'. So what hard reasons do you have that the mechanical exists at all. You have none.

And indeed if you claim the mechanical world you are therefore implicitly claiming that 'I' somehow is a product of the mechanical. So the burden of proof is already on your shoulders, because mechanics is not the same as the experience of 'I' and the mechanics therefore is the superfluous part.

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1. Thought passes all tests for something that doesn't physically exist: you can't hear it, see it, touch it, smell it.

You can measure it and new work by Japanese researchers demonstrate the early stages of being able to read it.

Kyu

I agree with Fro, you cannot measure the direct experience of 'I'. You cannot measure first person experience but your own.