(May 28, 2013 at 5:33 pm)bennyboy Wrote: Why is there subjective awareness, in a universe which is supposedly composed only of physical interactions? Why shouldn't even human beings be able to take in data, process it, and output a behavior, without ever actually experiencing this process?I'm a physical monist (as such a naturalist and reductionist) and I think what we have here is simply matter projecting & "thinking" it's special. The radicalization of this viewpoint on the other scale is of dualism and is called solipsism. Solipsism, to me, is a rejection of the possible existence of other minds other than your own.
For me to say that (my) consciousness is the only one there is, is to deny that there are other consciousnesses out there besides my own. This poses an obvious problem: If my consciousness is the only one there is, then I'm totally alone in the world vis à vis consciousness. However, as a physical monist I can see that there are other agents in the world, they seem to act on their own in such a way that they can interact with my own consciousness, so I make a small leap of faith and say that I'm not alone in this and conclude as an effect of this, that matter that make up my mind & the particular interactions of the brain, are merely matter interactions.
If (my) consciousness is more besides matter interactions, then why is my consciousness limited to my brain? Dualists have assumed so much on this question (e.g. the "immaterial"), whereas I simply says that it's reducible to what we can find out to be of reality through the sciences. Everything of the mind is reducible to reality.
I think dualists have big problem explaining other consciousnesses apart from their own because of the solipsism viewpoint.
This is in no way exhaustive of my viewpoint, just the enumeration of it.
