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Seems like a standard burden of proof question. There are theories that explain consciousness just as well as any others that are purely based in the material w

Seems like a standard burden of proof question. There are theories that explain consciousness just as well as any others that are purely based in the material world (my personal favourite is attention schema theory). These are, of course, incomplete theories. But they are all incomplete, both the material-only ones and the others. If you wish to add something, especially something fundamental that can affect physical matter but is not detectable at the scale of human brains then the burden of proof is on you.

AnimalMuppet 10y ago
First, Retric made the claim. The burden of proof is on him/her, not on me. But second, I think you misunderstood my comment (or else I misunderstood Retric's). Retric said, " It's uncomfortable for some people to realize a purely material world can give rise to objective experience, but there is a lot of evidence that suggests this is true." I understood that to mean that 1) we live in a purely material world, and 2) we have objective experience. My reply was that those are both assumptions - that this is a purely material world, and that we have genuine objective experience. Now, if the claim is that we have theories that explain these things, then I would say that "theories that explain" is not the same as evidence that suggests (or better, demonstrates) that this is true. A fine-sounding theory about something like consciousness (that we don't really understand) leaves me somewhat less than convinced.
- Retric 10y ago
  1) we live in a purely material world I explicetly and repeatedly did not say this.
  - AnimalMuppet 10y ago
    I misunderstood, then. My error.
- freshhawk 10y ago
  I might have misunderstood the comment chain here, but I was responding to this: "There's only evidence if you assume that this is a purely material world". I wouldn't call that an assumption, that's the evidence based worldview at the moment. Any arguments that don't assume that have an additional burden of proof placed on them.

AnimalMuppet 10y ago

First, Retric made the claim. The burden of proof is on him/her, not on me. But second, I think you misunderstood my comment (or else I misunderstood Retric's). Retric said, " It's uncomfortable for some people to realize a purely material world can give rise to objective experience, but there is a lot of evidence that suggests this is true." I understood that to mean that 1) we live in a purely material world, and 2) we have objective experience. My reply was that those are both assumptions - that this is a purely material world, and that we have genuine objective experience. Now, if the claim is that we have theories that explain these things, then I would say that "theories that explain" is not the same as evidence that suggests (or better, demonstrates) that this is true. A fine-sounding theory about something like consciousness (that we don't really understand) leaves me somewhat less than convinced.

Retric 10y ago
1) we live in a purely material world I explicetly and repeatedly did not say this.
- AnimalMuppet 10y ago
  I misunderstood, then. My error.
freshhawk 10y ago
I might have misunderstood the comment chain here, but I was responding to this: "There's only evidence if you assume that this is a purely material world". I wouldn't call that an assumption, that's the evidence based worldview at the moment. Any arguments that don't assume that have an additional burden of proof placed on them.