(September 28, 2015 at 11:02 pm)bennyboy Wrote:(September 28, 2015 at 9:25 pm)emjay Wrote: I didn't mean to offend you Benny. I just wanted to clarify that point to understand your position better. But I wasn't judging - I'm in no position to judge because you three are far more intelligent than I will ever be, and that's just a fact. So whether the answer was yes or no, it would make no difference to me, because I just want to understand it. Just as I want to understand Rhythm's and AKD's positions.
I'm not offended, and I doubt that I'm smarter than anyone here. But from the idealist perspective, let me say this: the brain is something we experience: we look at it, dissect it, etc. And it seems connected to consciousness, for sure. But on a philosophical perspective, you have to be suspicious of circles like that, even if they feel so "right."
I am suspicious of circles like that, and even more so after reading this thread and being formally introduced to the ideas of idealism and monistic idealism. I have absolute faith in neuroscience to find those correlations but in the end that's what they are - it doesn't say anything about how that experience would be 'created' by - or not even created but just co-existing with/equivalent to - processing/computation in the brain. So I'll always have doubts, no matter how strong those correlations appear to be, because of that unbridged gap. In this thread it is particularly the quantum stuff that makes me question even more, especially the "delayed choice quantum eraser experiment", as that seems decidedly influenced by consciousness rather than the physical, but I don't know enough about it (and probably haven't understood it correctly) so I'm looking forward to learning about it. As to the claimed proof in the OP, it's run the gauntlet now and I've tried my best to understand all the arguments for and against it put forward in this thread, but not being a master of logic I'm at a disadvantage and certainly in no position to judge it on my own or with any certainty. But nonetheless with everything that's been said in this thread, it has failed to convince me as a rock solid proof of monistic idealism. Likewise the first YouTube video I watched of Johanan Raatz's Introspective Argument, as referenced in the OP, didn't fill me confidence as when calling in to some sort of logic TV programme, the presenters just listened dismissively for a while, then concluded by telling him to put it in an email. But despite it failing to convince me on that score I still think it's very interesting and intriguing, but I realise that without proof it's just speculation or a theory.
