Like what? — TheMadFool

Reasons. I think I have reason to believe I am thinking, and that I have reason to believe that thoughts cannot exist absent a mind to think them, and reason to think that I, a mind, exist. But then if I have reason to think those things, and reason to think them true with certainty, then I have as much if not more reason to think reasons exist. And thus reasons exist with complete certainty.

Yes, it affirms that all is physical, a statement of absolute certainty. It has no room for doubt but that's exactly what's introduced with Descartes' deus deceptor and Harmann's brain in a vat. — TheMadFool

No, a view can be true and not believed. And a view can be true and not believed with certainty.

I do not believe materialism is true. But the fact that we can doubt the reports of our senses is not evidence that materialism is false. For we can doubt the reports of our senses even if materialism is false, and there's no special reason to think our senses would be indubitable if materialism were true (I mean, why would they be?).

But anyway, this is now getting off topic. The mind is not the brain regardless of whether brains are material objects or something else. If they are material objects - that is, if they are extended in space - then our minds are clearly not identical with them, for our minds seem to have no properties in common and thus are about as far from being them as it is possible to be. And if they are not extended in space - that is, if brains are not material substances, but bundles of ideas in the mind of God (as Berkeley believed), then our minds are not them either, for our minds are not bundles of ideas, but objects that have ideas.

Those who believe that our minds are our brains invariably have no argument for that view - they just assume it because they are fashion victims and that is the current intellectual fashion - or they have appalling arguments (see Murky above).

Well I certainly think it is wrong to procreate, at least in normal circumstances (stupid too, but I will put that to one side).

To procreate is to impose a whole lifetime in this world on another person without that person's prior consent. Normally it is wrong - seriously wrong - to make a major imposition on another person without their prior consent. We recognize this in other contexts. And it doesn't get much more major than imposing a lifetime here on another person. So that's one reason - a Kantian reason - to think that procreation is default wrong.

It is also reasonable to believe that any person one makes live here is innocent - born innocent, that is - and thus a large portion of the suffering they will invariably undergo while living their life will be undeserved. And that's the worse grade of suffering - undeserved suffering. We normally have powerful moral reason to prevent undeserved suffering from occurring. By contrast, the pleasures they experience in life are likely to be largely not deserved as well, for the same reason (the innocent do not deserve to suffer, but nor do they deserve pleasure, even though it may be good for them to receive it). Pleasure that is not deserved is pleasure we typically do not have any moral reason to create. And certainly, it is not normally permissible to create undeserved suffering in order to create some pleasure that is not deserved. So, procreation creates lots and lots of undeserved suffering (especially when one factors in all the undeserved suffering the person one creates will visit on other creatures) and (less) undeserved pleasure. Well, normally an act that will create undeserved suffering and undeserved pleasure is an act we ought not to perform for precisely that reason.

Those who procreate are also typically motivated by immoral desires. For instance, they want to have followers who will worship them unconditionally. So they're pathetic megalomaniacs who want to be the undeserved apple of another's eye. In other contexts we recognize the sick nature of these attitudes.

Parents also don't know what's going to fall out, do they? Could have any character. Could be a saint, could - more likely - be a git. And yet they're going to become addicted to it and devote large portions of their life to caring for it and thinking about it. And that's regardless of what 'it' is. How's that sensible? Is taking heroin sensible? No, because once you start you can't stop. And it's expensive and it will take up your life. So, you know, don't. Well, that's what having a kid will do too.

Being a parent also seems to compound the stupidity. I mean, why are parents 'proud' of their offspring? They invariably are. But why? Is having a child a great achievement? No, someone just squirted some goo into you (is it hard to persuade people to do that??) and then something grew in you and then your body expelled it. Go you!! Well done! Or you persuaded someone to allow you to squirt goo into them and that resulted in a grub growing in other other person's body and then their body expelled it. Go you!! Give yourself a big pat on the back! And then you both fed and clothed it - ooo, aren't you good! You didn't just let it starve or freeze to death. You're a saint! And then it grew up and did things. And you're proud?!? Ashamed is what they should be.

Parents - most of them - are also horribly irresponsible. For if one voluntarily has a child, then one owes that person a lifetime of support. One owes them a comfortable a life. And yet unless you're fabulously rich, you almost certainly can't provide that. So the rest of us have to pick up the tab (that should change, of course - parents should be made to pay the true cost of their irresponsible and self-indulgent procreative decisions). Far from recognizing this, parents - most of them - think they've done a fabulous thing just feeding and supporting and housing the person during that person's most vulnerable period. Er, that's absolutely demanded - that's not praiseworthy, not remotely. You 'ought' to do those things and a whole load more - more than can realistically be done.

Right, rant over.

My point is that the only thing anyone can be certain of is that they have minds (the thinker) — TheMadFool

I don't think that's true - we can be certain of more than that.

everything else, the material/physical world, could be an illusion à la Cartesian deus deceptor and brains in vats. — TheMadFool

But you said that this was the essence of the problem for physicalism (which I take to be equivalent to materialism). That was the bit I didn't understand. How is it the essence of the problem for physicalism? Does physicalism, to be plausible, need to be indubitable?

I don't follow.

Whether brains are physical objects or the mental activity of another mind (as, say, Berkeley would maintain) is left open by their existence being potentially illusory. That is, we could be dreaming brains exist and there are none in reality consistent with Berkelian idealism. As such, I don't see how physicalism per se is challenged by what I have said.

My point was that one's mind exists with the utmost certainty, whereas one's brain does not. And thus it is the height of silliness to suppose the mind to be illusory and one's brain not.

No, I am giving you diamonds and you are giving me rabbit droppings.

So, you think I don't think straight, right? Your evidence for that, I take it, is that I don't think like you, yes?

Shall we review your brilliant thoughts. From what I can tell, you think that the brain exists more certainly than your own mind. You have no argument for that, and it's obviously false. But that's what you think. And then you think that your brain - which exists more certainly than you, you think - causes your thoughts. Which is something that would only be possible if your mind exists, given that thoughts are states of mind. And then you think that this somehow shows your mind to be imaginary, even though imaginings require a mind to be having them (you think this because of dashes and arrows, from what I can tell). That's straight thinking, yes?

I just modeled it. My brain. — Mark Nyquist

No, Murk. With your 'mind'. Baby steps. Minds think. Thoughts are 'mental states'. A mental state is, by definition, a 'state of mind'.

So, you thought those silly things with your 'mind'. And you have then just assumed that your mind is your brain.

Your mind exists more certainly than your brain. You could just be dreaming brains - every time you think you've seen a brain could have been a dream. You are not dreaming you're thinking when you're thinking, and so not dreaming that you've got a mind.

Murk----->confused------>very

Murk, what did you think those jumbled thoughts with?

What if God told you to commit suicide?

What if I contain a deadly virus that will die with me the instant I die or else infect others and spread like wildfire. A group of innocent people are coming towards me and there's nothing I can do to stop them save kill myself. Surely it is right - or at least, not wrong - for me to kill myself under those circumstances?

I was just looking at the page. I embellished the rest. — Mark Nyquist

You might want to look up 'embellished' next.

Show your logic for why mind is needed so I have an example. I'm thinking it's an imagined object. — Mark Nyquist

And what, pray, are you thinking that with, Murk?

Wikipedia is not peer reviewed. It's written by well meaning nincompoops who only half understand what they're confidently pronouncing on.

You brought up mind. You defend it. Pretty sure that's how it works. — Mark Nyquist

No, this thread is about the mind and whether it is the brain. And no, that's not how it works. Why are you sure about things that you know nothing about? You're not classically trained, remember?

Both mind and brain are more basic elements than are needed. — Mark Nyquist

What. Are. You. On. About?

That's a conclusion: what are your premises?

I understand hard determinism to be the combination of two views: a) that causal determinism and free will are incompatible; and b) that determinism is true. Thus, if hard determinism is true, we lack free will.

For the record: I think hard determinism is demonstrably false, for if a is true, then that's evidence that b is false and vice versa. But you're asking what it would entail if true - so, I take it you're asking what is entailed if we lack free will.

Well, if we lack free will, then we lack all obligations. Or at least, that seems self-evident. Obligations, whether moral, instrumental or epistemic, presuppose free will. Thus, if we lack free will, then we lack any obligation to do or think anything. As such, if hard determinism is true, nothing you think is anything you ought to think, or ought not to think, and likewise for anything you do. So it is a kind of dead-end.

Personally, I like the method of working the problems of monism/dualism, information, brain states and a few other problems as one problem. Can your method do that? — Mark Nyquist

I don't know what you mean.

'My method' is 'philosophy'. That is, using reason to figure out what's the case.

Focus! The issue here is whether the mind is the brain, right? Well, do you have any evidence that it is?

But you possess a faculty of reason, yes? And your reason tells you, does it not, that this argument is valid:

1. If P, then Q
2. P
3. Therefore Q

And that this one is not:

1. P
2. Therefore Q

When asked to provide evidence that the mind is the brain, most will provide the second argument. That is, they will say "mental states are caused by brain states" (or something equivalent - doing something to the brain affects what goes in in the mind, etc).

That's not a valid argument. It's this:

1. Brain states cause mental states
2. Therefore brain states are mental states

That's

1. P
2. Therefore Q

So to make it valid, we need to add a premise saying "if P, then Q".

But what does that mean in this context? It means adding "if brain states cause mental states, then brain states are mental states"

Yet that premise is obviously false. Our reason tells us this as clearly as it tells us that the argument is valid. For instance, I am affecting you right now - so things I am doing are affecting you. That doesn't mean I am you.

Anyway, that's 'reasoning' and it is the only way to figure out what's true. For otherwise one is just making shit up or listening to yourself.

Well, that was just gibberish.

Do you have any evidence that your mind is your brain? If you do, present it.

Your task, should you choose to accept it, is to present a valid argument that has this conclusion: 'therefore, my mind is my brain'.

This is a valid argument form:

1. If P, then Q
2. P
3. Therefore Q

Q is the proposition "my mind is my brain".

The argument will be a good one to the extent that 1 and 2 are self-evident to reason or else are themselves teh conclusions of arguments that have premises that are self-evident to reason.

So, here is the argument that most of those who believe the mind is the brain provide, if they have wit enough to be able to provide any at all:

1. If brain states cause mental states, then brain states are mental states (and my brain is my mind).
2. Brain states cause mental states
3. Therefore, brain states are mental states (and my brain is my mind).

That argument is shit. Why? Because premise 1 is obviously false: if A causes B, that does not mean A 'is' B.

So that's a rubbish argument. And that's the beauty of arguments: when you're forced to make one, you can discover that your view is based on assumptions that are self-evidently false. Perhaps there's a good argument out there that has "therefore, my mind is my brain" as its conclusion - but if there is, I haven't heard it yet.

Or you can just wrap yourself in a big cloak of your own ignorance. You decide.

You might be right about brain state causing mental state being fallacy. I was giving an overview, not cause and effect. My second attempt was that thought can only exist if supported by brains state. That's how I approach it — Mark Nyquist

I don't understand your point. There's no evidence your mind is your brain. There's lots of evidence your mind is not your brain. That's the actual situation. So, if we're interested in what's true, that's what's most likely true: your mind is not your brain.

Again: if you try and argue that your mind is your brain, you are almost certainly going to argue badly. For instance, you are now implying that if mental states 'depend' on brain states - a thesis for which you have provided no evidence - this somehow shows that they 'are' brain states. How? That same reasoning would lead you to conclude that the second storey of my house 'is' the first storey of my house.

Where's your argument for this? If you provide one, I bet it'll commit the fallacy I identified earlier - that is, you're going to argue like this: this brain state causes this mental state......therefore this brain state 'is' this mental state.

A specific thought unsupported would not exist. — Mark Nyquist

A second storey can't exist without a first storey. That does not imply that the second storey 'is' the first storey. So, even if your unsupported claim that a mental state can't exist absent a brain state is true - and I stress, it isn't true and you have not supported it in anyway - that would not be evidence that the mental state 'is' the brain state.

Yes. How would that work? You think that by inspecting the brain more closely you'll literally 'see' a thought? Or smell one, perhaps?

That is your definition, not mine, and is riddled with contradictions. — Derrick Huestis

It's not 'my' definition, whatever that means. What on earth do you understand being 'all powerful' to involve if not being able to do anything? 'Not' being able to do some things?? Look, if you want you can define being all powerful as being a cabbage - but what's the point in that, given then all you're doing is seeking to prove a cabbage exists? So, either you're talking about God with a capital G, or you're talking about someone or something else. But if you're talking about God, you're talking about an omnipotent person, and an omnipotent person can do anything. I mean, even those silly theists who think otherwise admit that they need to argue their case (which they do by insisting that being able to do the logically impossible is no ability at all - that's not a good case, my point is that they nevertheless recognize the need to present one).

Omnipotent - it means 'all powerful'. Which means you have the power to do anything, for if you didn't, then you'd lack a power.

Sure, I could kill myself but is that a power? — Derrick Huestis

Yes.

I've had 15 foster kids in my home, and many struggled with the issue of power. Sure, an 8 year old can present himself as powerful lighting houses and schools on fire, but now at age 11 they still keep that kid locked up. Doesn't seem to be a power to me. And the teenager who put many holes in my walls and trashed my house, all it got him was more detention, more constraints, and less freedom. Again, doesn't sound like a power to me. — Derrick Huestis

A constraint is a constraint - it stops you doing something. So, if you are constrained, you lack power. The power to place oneself in constraints is, however, a power.

Anyway, your case has been refuted: God can do anything and thus everything that exists is capable of not existing - which means that a state of 'nothing' is possible.

And again, even if one allows you to reify nothing and predicate existence of it, that generates no contradiction. For nothing would now simply be a state that has the property of existence.

Really? Well, an 'argument' is a chain of reasoning. I presented one.

God is an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent person.

To be omnipotent is to be maximally powerful. You are not maximally powerful if you lack the power to do something.

Thus, God - being all powerful - is able to do anything. And that means God can destroy anything, including himself.

And that means that it is possible for God to take all things out of existence.

And what be the case if God did that? Why, nothing would exist. Which you seem to think means a thing called 'nothing' has existence. Which is just silly. But even if it wasn't silly - and it is - it would not prove God. All it would mean is that nothing can exist. How would that get you to God? That is, let's reify nothing and say that it can have existence. Okay. Where's the problem with that?

It really is beautiful you keep stumbling upon the contradictions the Bible presents clear as day as a necessary truth. — Derrick Huestis

I don't read the bible - never have. I don't care what it says. I care only what Reason says.

But you care what it says. And Jesus - whom you believe to be God, yes? - said "with God all things are possible". So Jesus and I have something in common: we understand what omnipotence involves. It involves being able to do anything. Like wot Jesus said.

You mention necessary truths. Oh dear. More heresy. There are none. If God exists, then there are no necessary truths. For if God exists, then nothing exists of necessity and nothing happens of necessity, as God can destroy anything and everything at any point, thus all existences are contingent.

I presented a deductively valid argument with premises that cannot reasonably be denied, and you insist that I have argued nothing? Perhaps 'argument' is another word you do not understand.

Again: is there anything God cannot do? If so, why call him God? If there is not, then you are refuted as God can do anything including making it the case that there is nothing.

No, thinking does not take place in the brain. It takes place in the 'mind'. Thoughts are mental states - states of mind. They are not brain states.

Can a thought be up or down? Or to the left or the right? No, these are not properties thoughts can have. But they are properties of brain states.

Those who think that mental states are brain states either have no argument whatsoever - they just assume it and then proceed to wonder 'but how....' (that's most contemporary philosophy of mind.....it involves assuming that the mind is the brain and then noting that this makes no sense and then trying to make sense of it....it's the modern equivalent of discussing how many angels can be fit on a pinhead). Or they do have an argument, but it's a really shit one. It goes like this: doing things to my brain has effects on my mind...therefore my mind is my brain and that's where my thinking happens.

"God can do anything" is not the same as "God is all powerful." — Derrick Huestis

Yes they are. But even if they are not - and they are - it would be absurd to insist that a person who is constrained is nevertheless all powerful. For one can just posit a person who is not constrained in that way and that person would have more power than the constrained one - and what clearer contradiction could there be than to maintain that the person with less power is the more powerful one?

And "all powerful" is very different than the human conception of power. — Derrick Huestis

What do you mean? Do you mean that real power - power of the kind God has - involves 'not' being able to do things?

Anyway, you have said I have not argued anything - on the contrary, here is my argument:

1. God can do anything
2. If God can do anything, God can destroy everything
3. Therefore, God can destroy everything
4. If God can destroy everything, then it is possible for there to be nothing.
5. It is possible for there to be nothing

So I have clearly argued something. You, however, have not addressed my question: are there things God cannot do?

You're not answering the question, just caviling over words.

Is there anything God can't do? If you answer yes, you don't believe in God. The answer has to be no.

That's all that's needed. Draw as many distinctions as you like between different senses of 'destroy'. It is of no avail. The fact remains that God can take everything and anything out of existence if he so chooses. He's not restricted to rearranging the furniture of reality. He can remove it all. Again, to deny this is to hold that the existence of some things depends not on God, but something else - which is heretical and confused.

Destroying everything is something he can do, yes?

Yes, of course. Destroying everything is something God can do - it is an action, and it is an action that God can perform, because God is omnipotent. To suppose him unable to destroy everything is to suppose there to be something over and above God that constrains what he can do - which is confused.

Thus, from something nothing can come.

God can do anything. That's the essence of omnipotence. All things are possible with God. Thus God can destroy himself. He wouldn't be all powerful if he couldn't. It is manifestly absurd to maintain that you and I have powers that God lacks. We can destroy ourselves, yes? So God can too. If we find ourselves lacking that power - that is, if we find ourselves unable to destroy ourselves - then we have not discovered that we are more powerful than we'd previously believed, but less so. Yet it seems that you think that if God is unable to destroy himself, that makes him more powerful?!? How does that work?

Bible passages are not evidence. But Jesus said "with God all things are possible", did he not? And the word 'cannot' is ambiguous - so the passage you cite is entirely consistent with what I have said if 'cannot' is interpreted expressively (and that's how you'd need to interpret it if you're not to convict your holy book of containing contradictions).

The big difference between Christianity and Buddhism is that one is built on philosophical foundations and the other is built on bullshit.

The basic metaphysical picture at the heart of Christianity (and Islam and Judaism) is one that can be arrived at by rational reflection and enjoys epistemic justification. By contrast, nothing similar can be said for Buddhism. Take, for instance, the Karmic view of how the universe operates (a view I take to be central to Buddhism). What evidence is there for it? What good argument implies it? None that I know of (happy to be provided with one - but to date, no Buddhist I have spoken to has been able to furnish me with one). No wonder Buddhists encourage their followers to sit around and think nothing - rational reflection destroys such views. Buddhism is for the intellectually touched and psychologically weak, methinks. And Buddhists appeal not to epistemic reasons, but instrumental ones (believe this and you'll be happy, etc.).

I don't really see how you're addressing what I am saying.

You are arguing that it is impossible for there to be nothing, yes?

That's incompatible with God's existence.

If God exists, then nothing that exists exists of necessity. That is, it is possible for there to be nothing.

God exists. Therefore, it is possible for there to be nothing.

To deny this you either have to deny that God exists - but you can't do that if you're trying to prove God - or you have to insist that there are some things God cannot do (namely, destroy everything). In which case the person you believe in is not God but some hobbled creature not worthy of the name. Either way, you're denying God's existence. So, if God exists, it is possible for there to be nothing.

Your argument seems confused to me. First, the statement 'nothing exists' does not assert that something - nothing - has existence. Rather, it means that no thing exists. So it denies that existence is a property of anything.

Furthermore, if God exists - and he does - then there can clearly be nothing, for God can do anything and thus God can, if he so chooses, destroy everything, including himself. Thus, if God exists, it is possible for there to be nothing.

Ironically, then, an argument that proves something must exist (as opposed to just showing that something does exist), would disprove God, not prove him.

Well, a) you can't. And b) if you did, it would become apparent that your premises are nothing more than assertions as opposed to being propositions our reason represents to be true.

Anyway, this is like trying to teach a duck to drive a truck. Realistically we're not going to get beyond the flapping about in the cabin stage.

No, you just quoted lines and insisted that those lines are just assertions when they're conclusions of arguments. And then you just made a bunch of assertions and did nothing whatsoever to show how they are implied by anything more rationally fundamental.

Look, you don't have a clue how to argue - understandable, given that you can't even identify one when it is given.

It's simple. All evidence for anything boils down to one thing and one thing alone: a self-evident truth of reason.

So, try and find a claim so manifest to reason that virtually everyone's reason will confirm it, or if you can't do that, a claim that is more manifest to reason than its negation, and then find another and then extract their implications by means of a deductively valid argument. If you can do that, then you've made a powerful argument.

So, this is a deductively valid argument form:

1. If P, then Q
2. P
3. Therefore Q

Not because I say so, but because the reason of virtually all of reflective people will confirm that 3 is true if 1 and 2 are.

So, the validity of that argument is itself something that is manifest to reason. That is, virtually all reflective people confirm that their own reason says that if 1 and 2 are true, then 3 will as well. That's the evidence that that argument is valid. The reason of most reflective people represents it to be.

Now, I can express the argument in the OP in that form: that is, I can give you a series of such arguments that leads to my conclusion.

For instance, the reason of virtually everyone will also confirm that we are default intrinsically morally valuable and confirm that our intrinsic moral value has nothing to do with our shape, size, colour or location. Thus, the reason of virtually everyone confirms that we are intrinsically morally valuable 'irrespective' of our sensible properties, not 'because' of them.

That's one of my arguments. And it establishes an interim conclusion: that our moral value is not grounded in any of our sensible properties.

You can just assert that this is not so, but that's the very definition of unreasonable.

So:

1. If the reason of most reflective people represents us to have intrinsic moral value irrespective of any and all of our sensible features, then we have good evidence that we have intrinsic moral value irrespective of any and all of our sensible features
2. The reason of most reflective people represents us to have intrinsic moral value irrespective of any and all of our sensible features.
3. Therefore, we have good evidence that we have intrinsic moral value irrespective of any and all of our sensible features.

Now, do you have any objection to that argument?

Yes, you evaded a question with a question. I told you how I know the LNC is necessary for rational thought and discussion, and that I make no further claim than that. — Janus

No, I explained why I asked you that question. Your answer will be my answer, if answer it be.

What you have said so far is no answer at all.

Learn to focus.

Again, however you know that the law of non-contradiction is 'true', is how I know it to be too.

Now, what point do you have? DO you have one?

Yes, and I already said earlier, a couple times if I am not mistaken, that I make no metaphysical claim beyond saying that the LNC is necessary for rational thought and discussion. — Janus

Then I don't know what you're disputing or what you're asking me.

Let's recap, because so far as I can see, you're just being tedious.

I believe the law of non-contradiction is true. True, not false.

Banno thinks that somehow commits me to affirming an actual contradiction. I don't know why. I keep asking him to explain why, but he just squiggles and squoggles at the crucial point. So I don't think he knows, or realizes that it doesn't have this implication at all. But meh.

If memory serves, you asked me how I know that the law of non-contradiction is true. That's a separate issue, and rather than get embroiled in a pointless debate in which you eventually espouse some form of extreme scepticism about the possiblity of any knoweldge whatsoever, or just arbitrarily affirm some kind of empiricism, I asked you how you know it is true. Either you will be unable to furnish an answer, or you will give one that works. In the latter case, I will simply affirm that that is how I know of its truth too, and as you must accept that answer we can then move on.

Anyway, your answer was not really an answer at all. Now, if you're not willing to give one, then there's nothing further for us to discuss is there?

Look, in my view you're a very silly person who is outclassed by my cat in terms of comprehension skills.
There is clearly an argument in the OP. Quoting individual lines out of context - that is, just ignoring the argument that ties them together - and insisting that this demonstrates that no argument is present, is as stupid as trying to show that Rachmaninov's second piano concerto has no tune because if one re-arranges all the sounds it becomes nothing but a heap of noises.

In any case, I cannot see or find any other thing or substance upon which to place value. — NOS4A2

But I don't see an objection to my argument. And it is by such means - that is, by arguments of the kind I have presented - that one comes to 'see' that there must something else that bears our moral value apart from our sensible body.

If one insists on sensible evidence for an insensible soul, then one has blinded oneself from the outset. That our sensations provide us with evidence of a sensible body, is something that we learn not from the sensations, but from what our reason tells us to infer from them. So it is by reason, not sense, that one learns one has a sensible body in a sensible world.

And it is by reason, not sense, that one learns that one has intrinsic moral value.

And it is by reason, not sense, that one learns that the bearer of that intrinsic value - so, you - is not a sensible object.

That is a negative definition, but that is not a fault. For again, ruling out candidates is how one progresses. So, we do not have to know precisely what the mind is before we can rule out that it is a sensible object, anymore than a detective has to know precisely who killed Mary before she can rule out that John killed her.

It seems clear enough that though we are morally valuable, we are not morally valuable due to our possession of any sensible feature. Biological features are all sensible features. Thus no matter how complex and subtle the sensible differences may be between a corpse body and one that has intrinsic moral value may be, this will do precisely nothing to challenge my argument.

Am I morally valuable because I have a certain shape? No. And does it do anything to challenge this to note just how complicatedly shaped I am, or that the living me is compared to a corpse's body? No. And likewise for all other sensible features. They just aren't in the running. It has nothing to do with complexity or simplicity. Locate as many sensible differences between myself an a corpse, non of them accounts for why I am morally valuable.

You state:

"To put it another way, if you think we are lumps of meat - just lumps of meat that happen to think things - then you have a problem when it comes to explaining our moral value." — Gregory

No, that was a conclusion, not a blank assertion. The argument that preceded that quote - so, you know, the bulk of the OP - established it.

By contrast this:

Position: biology is the basis of our rights, thoughts, and value. You state: — Gregory

Is just an assertion of yours. And it conflicts with the 'conclusion' of my argument. So you need to refute my argument, else all you're doing is nay saying.

Sounds good. When I read "So, if a mind can have moral value despite its conscious states having moral disvalue, then the mind's moral value is not grounded in its mental states." I took that as a disagreement with "some - kinds of mental state may be sufficient for having no value or disvalue." But when you say "But no mental state is necessary for possession of moral value." it makes sense. I was also tired and flip when I read it. I should have taken a seat. — James Riley

Yes, I certainly would not want to deny that our mental states can often affect - and can often affect very dramatically - the moral value of ourselves. So I think - and would hold that widespread rational intuitions corroborate - that we have default intrinsic moral value. But I do not think our intrinsic moral value is inalienable. Our moral value can go up or down according to how we behave and so on. All my argument requires, so far as I can see, is that our default intrinsic value is not itself grounded in our mental states.