There is no "I" in "You"

[Ben Davis]

You're posts are not answering anything. Your outlines are explaining to me how you exists as you and I as I....rather than how in another possible world the precise inverse may have occurred and by what determination does the current scenario exist.

They are providing you with complete and elegant answers but you're still missing the point. If the exact circumstances leading to the rise of our specific brains don't occur, we don't exist at all. We are fluke, each an every one of us. It's not as if our consciousnesses are floating around somewhere waiting for brains to inhabit. A different sperm fertilises 'your' egg? You don't exist. A different egg is fertilised by 'your' sperm? You don't exist. If almost any of the seemingly numberless events preceding your conception happen differently, you don't exist.

The "gotcha" is in your conspicuous lack of answers... 

The problem seems to be that you don't realise how unique and tenuously rare your existence is. The elegance of the reality of the situation seems to escape you, maybe because you have some unconscious assumptions about the nature of existence built in to your models. You've shared quite a lot in other conversations in this thread so I'll have a re-read and see if any of them jump out at me.

Is this another "gotcha" moment?

Quite possibly but not, I think, in the way you're imagining.

[Whateverist]

Can anyone answer why you're you.....and not me?

Do you actually assume there would be a reason?

By what method of determination do I experience existence separate from your experience;

The obvious thing to say is that the sensory/cognitive functioning of your organism only feeds into what you call your experience and not into mine.

more to the point, what determined both our particular experiences and could one have been shunt in place of another (by what alternate means could I have experienced existence through your perspective or vice versa)?

This doesn't seem to make sense. Why do you assume there is any 'you' apart from what arises in relation to the experience of your organism?

Why here, why now...why not exist a thousand years from now or a thousand years past?

You can ask this about anything whatsoever. It isn't any more significant asked in this context than in any other.

Can this ever be coherently approached or determined materialistically/scientifically?

No. For science to come into play you would need to ask a coherent question, and one which can then be investigated empirically.

Or, is metaphysics a fundamental necessity?

What do you mean by metaphysics? Is that code for unbridled theorizing devoid of any empirical evidence?

If it is the way experience eludes science which interests you I would think phenomenology is would be the way to go.

[quip]

You[r] posts are not answering anything. Your outlines are explaining to me how you exists as you and I as I....rather than how in another possible world the precise inverse may have occurred and by what determination does the current scenario exist.

They are providing you with complete and elegant answers but you're still missing the point.

I understand your point, I just believe there is more to the point than you're willing to examine. (BTW I appreciate your courteous objections on the issue.)

 It's not as if our consciousnesses are floating around somewhere waiting for brains to inhabit.  ...you have some unconscious assumptions about the nature of existence built in to your models.

Why ever not?  That very idea's roughly equal to the Buddhist notion of the five skandhas, an idea of which you, likewise, cannot merely dismiss without employing your own "unconscious assumptions about the nature of existence built in to your models."

I'm not asking Atheists to believe as such (that would be entirely pretentious and a bit too much to ask.) but rather raising doubt to their assumed materialistic model of reality.

[LadyForCamus]

Funny...I don't recall my consciousness floating around before I was born...

[quip]

Can anyone answer why you're you.....and not me?

Do you actually assume there would be a reason?

Yes.
Philosopher, Theologians have shown that there are limits to reason. Why do you assume that a rational take on reality is not free of limitation?

By what method of determination do I experience existence separate from your experience;

The obvious thing to say is that the sensory/cognitive functioning of your organism only feeds into what you call your experience and not into mine.

Tis' not in contention...at least not by me.

more to the point, what determined both our particular experiences and could one have been shunt in place of another (by what alternate means could I have experienced existence through your perspective or vice versa)?

This doesn't seem to make sense.  Why do you assume there is any 'you' apart from what arises in relation to the experience of your organism?  

I don't, that's your misinterpretation.

Why here, why now...why not exist a thousand years from now or a thousand years past?

You can ask this about anything whatsoever.  It isn't any more significant asked in this context than in any other.

Yes it is. The self-evident nature of the "I" holds to undeniable subjective ontological examination/context...one entirely unavailable to an otherwise extrinsic existent.

Can this ever be coherently approached or determined materialistically/scientifically?

No.  For science to come into play you would need to ask a coherent question, and one which can then be investigated empirically.  

I agree.
Whether the empiric method suffices is where we differ.

Or, is metaphysics a fundamental necessity?

What do you mean by metaphysics?  Is that code for unbridled theorizing devoid of any empirical evidence?

Otherwise known as "woo".

---

Funny...I don't recall my consciousness floating around before I was born...

That's probably because consciousness requires a brain/host.

[LadyForCamus]

Well, atheist we agree on one thing...

[ignoramus]

I'm wondering where any evidence might be found demonstrating the separability of mind and brain.

I'm starting to suspect that he believes in a hive consciousness to which each individual is connected to distinguished only by a unique Mac address?  

Cool concept but completely unfounded in this reality...

[robvalue]

Still conflating atheism with naturalism, I see.

[The Grand Nudger]

What about this--if the question is whether eastern philosophical traditions are more rational than western traditions, I agree with you. They are not. My contention is that they are more skeptical. In the sense of not having much confidence in metaphysics.

They didn't have much confidence in metaphysical propositions to which a western audience is familiar, they had a great deal of confidence in their own.  Will we be treated to another myopic selection of scrubbed parts of a single tradition as support of this continued claim?

Let's contrast this kind of skepticism with two philosophers that had no problems at all making claims about all sorts of metaphysics: Plato and Aristotle. 

Pointless. For reasons elaborated on at length.

Now let's take Nagarjuna. Ask him about whether we can know stuff about metaphysics, and he's all, "No...just, no."

I'm fascinated that you think this.

But anyway. To give you an example of how anatta relates to physics, a while ago I was watching a conversation between Robert Wright and Lawrence Kraus, about the Higgs boson. And how it explains why electrons have mass. Wright stated that it wouldn't have occurred to him to think that there ought to be an explanation for something like that--he would have just accepted mass as a brute fact about electrons. A property they have which has no explanation.

Stop right there.  It doesn't,  anatta has and had absolutely no relation to physics, then or now, or any portion of modern science.  This is an "allah predicted it" moment.  Retroactive syncretism.

What he was presupposing is metaphysics. That electrons have "own-nature," or svabhava, as the ancient Indians called it. Read some Nagarjuna and you'll see him critiquing this concept within an unexceptionally non-ghosty intellectual framework.

People who don't believe in ghosts often manage to believe an incredible number of other, equally less-than-skeptical things. Your boy Nagarjuna, for example, was a loon. Again counting hits, ignoring misses. I get that you find this non-ghostly framework so refreshing. That it seems like there are ghosts everywhere in western philosophy. However, like the rise of buddhism...that has more to do with politics and history than philosophy or the relative skepticism of either tradition. It probably has more than a little bit to do with your familiarity with both traditions, as well.

[Ben Davis]

I understand your point, I just believe there is more to the point than you're willing to examine.

What makes you think that I haven't examined it, for decades, from a wide variety of perspectives? I haven't reached my current conclusions out of thin air. And I'll continue to examine it in order to maintain a view that's consistent with the best information available on the subject. However the materially naturalistic perspective that I support is so well evidenced that it would take a particularly impressive piece of evidence to change it.

(BTW I appreciate your courteous objections on the issue.)

Ditto. Bad manners help no-one.

Why ever not?  That very idea's roughly equal to the Buddhist notion of the five skandhas, an idea of which you, likewise, cannot merely dismiss without employing your own "unconscious assumptions about the nature of existence built in to your models."

Why not? Because there's absolutely no robust evidence to support such a position. I don't employ unconscious assumptions, I employ conscious reasons. You could accuse me of bias, rightly but it's a rational and reasonable bias based on the overwhelming preponderance of the evidence.

I'm not asking Atheists to believe as such (that would be entirely pretentious and a bit too much to ask.) but rather raising doubt to their assumed materialistic model of reality.

Until you can provide evidence for me to do so, I simply can't. It's not in my nature. But of course, that's exactly what a material naturalist would say