consciousness?

[Neo-Scholastic]

Your excuse that we can't establish a causal link unless we completely understand the phenomena is bullshit.

That’s not exactly what I’ve been trying to say so I must not be presenting my ideas clearly enough. The thrust of my critique is this. Your position does not allow you to distinguish between the idea that physical events CAUSE felt experience and the idea that physical events ARE felt experiences.

What I am saying is this. There are specific features of the world that we associate with the mind. And there are specific, but different features of the world that we associate with the brain.

This is true because we can talk about the inner life of the mind without making any reference to the brain or its functioning. Likewise we can talk about the brain and its physical functions with never a reference to the mind, so much so that felt experience has no reason for happening. You can supply neither a functional purpose for felt experience nor a reason why it should happen at all. Your position dismisses the importance of the most salient feature of the world, the feeling of being alive. It ends any need for inquiry into the relationship between mind and matter, by assuming only matter is important. And what is worse, it creates a schism between what you believe about life and how you actually live it.

Your example proves nothing because it begs the question. Removing the indicator of consciousness does not mean consciousness has ceased. If you remove the hands of a clock that doesn't mean the inside gears have stopped working.

There is a very easy way for you to find this out for yourself, you know.

Yes, I look forward to that day though I will not hasten the process. The Lord has more work for me to do and challenges to face.

You are the one with the biased position and incapable of change in face of mounting evidence.

In actuality I have modified my position since I last participated in the forums, but I have not presented anything definite because I’m still thinking about it. In the meantime I only offer a critique of the belief that physical processes cause experiences. Or that it is an illusion. Both of which were presented as viable theories.