Non-existence

[Jon Paul]

That's not what I was trying to say. I was trying to demonstrate how our bodies are just as real as our minds, as we experience the physical sensations of our bodies in much the same way as the physical sensations on our minds. I wasn't arguing for a world outside of the mind/body, only making the point that the body must be as real as the mind.

But with the body you are already presuming that a reality exists outside of the mind - the body, which in solipsism, would just be another part the sense data that the mind is conscious of. Our knowledge of the body depends exactly on the sense-data that is in our mind, about the body (for instance, the sensation of the body).

Note that I explicitly said that solipsism makes no positive affirmation on whether there is a reality outside the mind, and so, it can't possibly make any affirmations as to the origin of our sense data, beyond that it is in the mind.

But your body should also be. This is my point so far.

Not in solipsism.

I am aware of your position on the complexity argument. And until you clarified your position in your last post, I just assumed you took this position seriously. What I should instead say is that in denying ones most basic capacities for knowledge, how can anybody claim a logical progression to solipsism if even their thoughts may not be trust-worthy?

Solipsism does not state that all thoughts (such as: I experience this sense-data, or, I am a mind) are untrustworthy. What it does state is that all thoughts about the origin of our sense data and reality outside the mind are untrustworthy.

Speculating in untrustworthiness of other thoughts is not an inherent part or affirmation of solipsism.

Thanks for the clarification. I'm not sure you are correct in asserting that solipsism is the most reduced form of affirmation of our existence. It raises far, far more questions than it can answer.

Because it does not make any positive claims as to the answers to those questions.

For example, in a solipsistic universe, everything in existence in this universe was generated by the mind.

No. Solipsism does not positively state anything about where our sense-data comes from. It does not positively deny the existence of anything outside the mind either; but it exactly does not affirm it, either. It only affirms the conscious experience, the mind.

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There is no evidence for philsophical zombies either.

Philosophical zombies is not a claim which requires evidence on the point of minds, in contradistinction to the claim that we do have minds.

For everything that philosophical zombies predict of human behaviour is verifiable and holds true.

Whereas, the idea that others have minds is an unverifiable presupposition based on personal inclination to that generalisation.

There is merely a failure of evidence for the consciousness of others. This doesn't mean they're philosophical zombies.

Of course it doesn't prove it, because it's not a claim which needs to be proven, as it is readily verifiable that what philosophical zombies does predict does occur. That does not prove the exclusion of mind; but it proves that postulating mind in others is unnecessary, is to claim more than needed to explain the same fact, and the only really important thing - is unverifiable.

It's far more likely that they are the same as me but...the reason why I can't detect their consciousness....is that I'm not them!.

Now you are going into the nature of ontology. The problem is that there is no reason to assume the possibility for the ontogenesis of a conscious mind to begin with, if we are to proceed from general naturalistic principles. So that under naturalism, in fact, your own conscious mind is a surprise rather than something you should expect and predict. And importantly, it is externally unverifiable, and only an internal surprise.

- I would suscribe to the view of these two quotes. There is evidence of consciousness, but not that it is anything but the brain...because, there is evidence of own belief in consciousness, and the workings of the brain itself, and no further. My brain gets totally effected when it gets effected physically. As far as I know consciousness is nothing special.

Daniel Dennet doesn't address the points I've raised, and I have already read much of what he has to say about consciousness and qualia, which largely adds absolutely nothing to our understanding of these phenomena, except an introduction of some new semantics.

If Philosophical Zombies are behaviorally indistinguisable then they must include consciousness, because if you strip the consciousness off you change the behavior.

There is no need to "strip consciousness off", unless you already expect consciousness to occur. And you have no neutral source in naturalistic principles for that expectation, only your own qualitative experience of consciousness, which, insofar as it is not itself predicted by any generative principles, and is externally unverifiable, does not mandate such a prediction in general, from the causal mechanism (brain) which can be explained as a philosophical zombie just as well, to the internal ontology (conscious mind) which is externally unverifiable and unpredictable by methodological principles.