(March 27, 2014 at 9:55 am)Pickup_shonuff Wrote: "Physics does not content itself with being a mere mass of observations about positions, velocities, and charges of various objects at various times; it systematizes these observations and shows how they are consequences of underlying laws, where the underlying laws are as simple and as powerful as possible. The same should hold of a theory of consciousness." - David Chalmers
I read this quote a minute ago that basically captures all of my sympathies for pantheism, although I suppose the line between that and deism more accurately describes where I'd tread if I ever felt compelled to make that leap. Chalmers himself takes the position of "naturalistic dualism," arguing in this book (The Conscious Mind) that "the cornerstone of a theory of consciousness will be a set of psychophysical laws governing the relationship between consciousness and physical systems." Furthermore he says (to my relief), "There need be nothing especially supernatural about these laws. They are part of the basic furniture of nature, just as the laws of physics are. There will be something "brute" about them, it is true. At some level, the laws will have to be taken as true and not further explained. But the same holds in physics: the ultimate laws of nature will always at some point seem arbitrary. It is this that makes them laws of nature rather than laws of logic." (bold mine)
Fascinating shit, at least in my opinion (maybe it's cause I just smoked resin). I don't think he makes the case for dualism sufficiently at all, at least not yet, but I appreciate the way he thinks about the problem and his approach to it. I still have to side with the reductive functionalists when it comes to the mind-brain question.
Everything is fascinating shit when you've just smoked resin. At least if its sativa.
I have to say the part you bolded fails to compute for me. Aren't the 'laws of logic' at least to a great extent based on our observations of nature? I believe that our brains are part of the cosmos (or nature, if you will), and our minds are products of our brains.
