On naturalism and consciousness

[Ben Davis]

Hmmmm. It's fun when people make assertions for me. Then I don't have to bother making my own.

I assume this response is because you can't show it.

The fact that there is nothing one can be truly gnostic about but direct experience.

You're conflating the existence of reality with human capability of experiencing reality. Our intelligence has granted us the luxury of being able to ask these questions but matter would still exist even if humans didn't, as would the rest of existence.

Hmmm. And what philosophically water-tight non-experiential method are you using to confirm the validity of this evidence, or your means of collecting it?

Once again, our ability to experience reality has no bearing on the actual existence of reality, unless you can show that mind-without-brain exists and that reality is a consequence of the experiences of this mind. You're on far shakier ground than I am.

Really? I think we should slam on the brakes right here, and you can explain how we demonstrate things without the necessity of them being experienced.

And again! You seem to be stuck on this conflation. There's no evidence to suggest that our ability to demonstrate reality shapes or creates reality. With or without human experience, matter would still attract matter with a force in relation to its mass.

You use the word "evidence" too much, and wrongly.

I use the word to mean 'whatever can be used to support an assertion'. I've asked for any evidence from you without making a judgement on its potential value or validity. So far, you've avoided providing any.

You imply that only experiences which are sharable can be true, valid, or valuable.

In demonstrating the nature of reality, yes. But not just 'sharable' also testable, falsifiable and validatable. That methodology has proven itself to be reliable with practical results.

But this is false, because qualia are not sharable, and they are the only thing that can be said to be real without making any philosophical assumptions.

Just because qualia are not directly sharable doesn't mean they aren't repeatable or reproducable. For example, music might give you goose-pimples but it can also do the same for someone else. Neurological examination of those common experiences are telling.

Anyway, what does "evidence" actually mean? You clearly take it to mean objective support for a positive assertion. But that's not what evidence really is-- it is actually an experience which one uses to demonstrate coherence with ideas about past experiences. See? Here you are arguing for an objective reality, and the only means you have of arriving at that conclusion are subjective. Escher, eat your heart out!

I gave my definition of evidence earlier but the best kind of evidence is data. Cold, hard data. Data is not an experience, it is measurement, divorced from one's personal experience by way of repeatability & reproducability, accuracy & precision. My personal experience of the data, whilst necessary to gather it, has no bearing on the fact of the data.

If all you can come up with in support of dualism is this constant handling of experience and reality as the same entity, without being able to give me a reason, some evidence, to suggest that they are in fact the same thing, I'm going to have a hard time accepting your supposition.