RE: Does it make sense to speak of "Universal Consciousness" or "Univer...
May 16, 2014 at 1:28 pm
(This post was last modified: May 16, 2014 at 1:30 pm by Chas.)
(May 16, 2014 at 3:15 am)bennyboy Wrote:(May 15, 2014 at 10:15 pm)Chas Wrote: You call me dogmatic, WooWooters? Irony.Waving at the brain isn't showing a "mechanism." So far, science has done exactly zero in determining how material structures or interactions cause things to actually experience qualia, rather than just seeming to.
I require evidence of and a plausible mechanism for a claim. There is no plausible mechanism for dualism, nor evidence of it.
All of the evidence from neuroscience is for consciousness to be brain-based.
The evidence for dualism is that there is mind, and the objects which a mind perceives and thinks about. You can insist that the mind supervenes on the brain-- certainly, the content of ideas and thoughts seems to do so. But not only can we not show a mechanism for the supervenience of consciousness on the brain, we can't even show why it would be that a physical structure which can input and process information and produce a behavioral output would cause/need actual subjective awareness.
There is no evidence for dualism, and you have not provided any.
(May 16, 2014 at 6:40 am)Cato Wrote:(May 16, 2014 at 3:15 am)bennyboy Wrote: The evidence for dualism is that there is mind, and the objects which a mind perceives and thinks about. You can insist that the mind supervenes on the brain-- certainly, the content of ideas and thoughts seems to do so. But not only can we not show a mechanism for the supervenience of consciousness on the brain, we can't even show why it would be that a physical structure which can input and process information and produce a behavioral output would cause/need actual subjective awareness.
The evidence you cite is for the mind in general and not particular to dualism. You are right to be critical of the lack of demonstrated mechanism for the monist position, but dualism has the same problem with the added burden of location issues and the effect of physical trauma on the mind.
No, he is not 'right to be critical'. We don't yet know how it works. That's it. That's the way science works.
Skepticism is not a position; it is an approach to claims.
Science is not a subject, but a method.
Science is not a subject, but a method.