consciousness?

[genkaus]

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.

You seem to be fighting a phantom of your own making. You are the only one who has been talking about the brain-identity. The thrust of your critique misses its mark since no one here has argued 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.

There are specific features of the world we associate with software and specific, but different features we associate with hardware. We can talk about the working of programs and applications and memory storage without making reference to hardware and we can talk about storage devices and RAMs and motherboards and their functions with never a reference to even the operating system being used, so much that apparently the software has no reason for happening. Are you now going to argue that essentially, computer software exists independently from the hardware?

You can supply neither a functional purpose for felt experience nor a reason why it should happen at all.

That's because,
a) you never asked this question
b) you assume there is a purpose behind felt experience
and c) the reason has already been explained via functionalism.

Your position dismisses the importance of the most salient feature of the world, the feeling of being alive.

Does it? How?

It ends any need for inquiry into the relationship between mind and matter, by assuming only matter is important.

Can you point out exactly where I made that assumption?

And what is worse, it creates a schism between what you believe about life and how you actually live it.

Actually, it removes any schism. What I believe about life is in line with how I live it.

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.

Why don't you try taking charge of your own life for once?

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.

Your arguments say it all. You may say that you have changed your position, but your arguments still come from the same premises.

In the meantime I only offer a critique of the belief that physical processes cause experiences.

Scroll up to the very first thing you said in this post. Your statement was that the thrust of your critique was that "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."

It seems you are confused as to what you are criticizing in the first place. You also, apparently, fail to understand the implications of your own statements.

That physical processes cause experience is a fact. It can be as simplistic as me punching you (a physical process) causing you pain (an experience). It can be a complicated as induced changes in brain chemistry causing different feelings or experiences. What you really want to argue against is the idea that physical processes are the same as experiences, but you can't because no one said that in the first place.