And I was addressing his view, not yours, and refuting it.

He has to hold that everything has conscious states. So my cupboard has them. And so do atoms. And so do what they're composed of. And so on.

Don't tell me again that he doesn't think this, for that would just be inconsistent of him or just him trying to disguise the absurdity of what he is proposing.

Don't- as you did - offer liquidity as an example of how it works, when that clearly cannot be how it works, given he doesn't think conscious properties are emergent.

Yes, a proper philosopher is here. Arrrgh, now the SEP regurgitations won't work - run for the hills, the nasty reasoning man has come to town. Science! Quantum fields!! Panty schism!! Language. Definitions. Sam Harris. Insults. Throw them at him and runnnn!!!

Your comment makes no sense.

If it is an emergent property, then how does it help explain Strawson's view given he does not think consciousness can be an emergent property? Or did you offer it as a counterexample to Strawson? Or did you not know what you were doing?

What are you on about? Maybe try reading Descartes himself rather than this Chumpsky guy.
Note too that as a general rule the mention of quantum mechanics in a philosophical discussion is an admission of defeat.

Now, liquidity - you haven't answered my questions about it. What is liquidity and is it an emergent property or not?

I don't have a clue what a quantum field is. But the concept of materialism predates any such notion. It's not a boundary condition in materialism that anything anyone thinks exists should be capable of being captured by it. For then one is just using 'material' to refer to what exists regardless of its nature.

Like I say, a good working definition is 'extended in space'(it's Descartes' definition). That's good regardless of whether quantum field would qualify.

I don't understand what you said about Descartes. He made several arguments for the immateriality of the mind. They're good arguments.

Eliminativism is more absurd than panpsychism.

For instance, I take it universal Eliminativism is absurd? That is, I take it we can all agree that the view 'nothing exists' is insane?

This thought that I am having right now exists. And a thought is a mental state. So at least one mental state - the one I am in right now - exists.

And it seems about as evident that thoughts require a thinker. Thus i, a mind, exist too.

I can't doubt that there are norms of reason either, as it was by recognizing that I have reason to think thoughts exist if I am thinking that I concluded that a thought exists. That is, to recognize that a thought exists requires having another thought, namely that there is reason to think a thought that is being thought exists. And likewise, to think that thoughts require a thinker is to think there is reason to believe a mind exists if a thought exists. And so in a way, norms of reason exist even more certainly than my thoughts and my mind do, as it was only by first recognizing that I have reason to believe something that I came to believe my thought and mind exist.

So thoughts, a thinker, and norms of reason all exist with the utmost certainty.

Material objects, note, are yet to enter the inventory. Maybe they will, maybe they won't. But that they have yet to enter itself tells us something. Namely that one is being incredibly stupid if one makes materialism the touchstone of reality, for then one is insisting that that which exists more surely should be made sense of in terms of that which exists less surely, and if one cannot make sense of it that way, then one should conclude that the less surely existent things are what really exist. Which is the pinnacle of rational perversion. This was Descartes' point - one of them - though few recognize or live by it. Pity.

I think it is a non starter. It addresses itself to a minor problem, not a major one. And its 'solution' is prima facie absurd and clearly raises more problems than it solves.

The real problem confronting those who think minds are material is the mammoth pile of rational intuitions that imply minds are immaterial and total absence of any positive evidence that they are material. The problem is not one to do with emergence. That's a problem - if problem it be - after you have provided us with some reason (epistemic reason) to think minds are material.

That's the problem with contemporary philosophy of mind - it's largely dominated by dogmatists who are focused on rearranging deck chairs on the titanic.

Most of the arguments for the immateriality of the mind do not suppose materialism to be false. That is, they do not depend upon rejecting the existence of anything material.

I think materialism about anything is false primarily because the very notion of a material object makes no sense as any such thing would be infinitely divisible and I think that is impossible.

Panpsychism can be used to illustrate that absurdity - for there are no basic material units from which larger material objects are made, and thus the panpsychism will have to posit an actual infinity of conscious things - but it is also independently nuts. That is, even if material objects can and do exist, panpschism would be absurd and irrational.

So, material objects do not exist. As minds do, that entails that minds are immaterial.

But even if material objects do exist, minds are clearly not material objects.

Like I say, there is precisely no evidence that minds are material objects and plenty that they are not.

My case against materialism does not depend on immaterialism. One - one - argument for immaterialism about the mind goes by way of a refutation of materialism about anything. The other 12 arguments do not.

The only reason I mentioned my own immaterialism about everything was to demonstrate that 'materialism' can't plausibly be used to refer to any view.

Liquidity - is it an emergent property or not? You tell me. Tell me what the property is exactly, and then whether it is emergent.

If it is not emergent, then we can use it to model what Strawson is saying, yes? If it is emergent, then we can't and it would constitute a counterexample. Agree?

This is not about the meanings of words. This is a matter of substance.

I am an idealist. So I think everything that exists is either a mind or a state of mind.

That, I take it, is not Strawson's view.

Materialism is the opposite of immaterialism. There's room to quibble over the precise definition of materialism, but it must not be so broad as to include immaterialism. It must not, for example, simply mean 'the view that is true', for now it is unhelpful and means identifying as a materialist means no more than one believes the true view, whatever it may be, is true. Which is vacuous.

Materialists believe there are objects extended in space. That's a good working definition.

I don't think there are. But even if there are, there's a debate over whether our minds are such things.

Your historical analysis is quite false. Descartes did not just arbitrarily believe that minds were not material mechanisms, he argued that they are not (Hobbes thought they were and they disagreed at the time).

Descartes' arguments have not been refuted and if he were alive today he would still be a dualist and would join me in deriding the stupidity and dogmatism of those who think the mind is material. He didn't suffer fools gladly and he'd have torn Strawson a new one.

you don't seem to understand what I am doing. I am 'refuting' Strawson's view.

I describe his view. I present it with a dilemma.

Here it is again: either conscious states are present (so, 'realized'to use your term) in molecules, or they are not and we have emergence.

You then keep telling me that Strawson does not think conscious states are present in molecules.

Er, so? That just shows he is inconsistent then.

You can't get out what you didn't put in. That's the intuition he's trying to respect. We agree on that. So, that means molecules need to be conscious. To get consciousness out, you need to put it in. See? That's the logic of his view. One can't back peddle and decide that no consciousness is realized at the molecular level, for the have emergence by a different name - the very thi g he wants to avoid.

Panpsychism and unconsciousness. I take it that I am sometimes unconscious. How's that possible on Strawson's view?
I take it as well that Strawson thinks people do die and that when they die that essentially involves permanently ceasing to be conscious?
How's that possible?
Take shape. I can change the shape of an object, but I can't stop it having a shape for a period. So how is unconsciousness possible, then? If an object can go from being conscious to unconscious, then it goes from having a state to not having it. But by Strawson's lights that would be impossible surely, for just as we can't get out what hasn't been put in, we can not fail to get out what we have put in. Same applies. An object can't be shaped at one point and have no shape whatever at another and then resume being shaped once more. For that would involve states coming from nothing and going into nothing. Likewise for consciousness then, on this absurd view.

I can destroy entirely something - I can smash a sculpture, say - but when I do this I do not destroy a thing's shape, but destroy the thing itself. So presumably on Strawson's view my own consciousness will only be destroyed when my brain is demolished. If my heart stops beating, i will still be alive until such time as my brain disintegrates. I mean, my brain has a shape until it no longer exists, right? So it has consciousness too. Presumably Strawson is appalled at our practice of burying people who still have identifiable brains.

By 'faith' I mean believing something irrespective of whether it has any support from reason. That does not mean that all views have an element of faith. For following reason would not be a faith position.

There are those who decide they already know what's true and then go out searching for arguments in support of it. They are just playing a pointless game. And then there are those who follow reason to find out what's true - Plato's definition of the philosopher (the one in whom reason is in charge, rather than appetite or spirit).

There is no reason to think materialism about the mind is true. When faith in a view is widespread, many mistake that for evidence or think that there must be an evidential base for it. But there is no evidential base for materialism about the mind. I have asked to be shown evidence for it time and time again, and in 10 years of asking, no one has provided me with any, just fallacious arguments that won't withstand a moment's reflection.

Back to Strawson. I do not see how you are going between the horns of the dilemma I presented. If conscious states can be wrought from that which is not itself bearing such states, the have emergence of precisely the sort that you say Strawson is opposed to and is using panpsychism to avoid. But if we do not have emergence, then conscious states - not something else - must be fully present in molecules.

Consider shape. We cannot get shape from that which is not shaped. Molecules have a shape as much as the objects they compose. They do not have to have the same shape, but they have a shape. Likewise for conscious states. Consciousness cannot emerge from that which is not conscious. There are as many different conscious states as there are shapes, so there is no need to suppose that the conscious states of the molecules composing my brain are the same in terms of content as those of my brain itself. But what one cannot say is that the conscious states of the molecules are somehow not as real or conscious, for that would be akin to saying that molecules do not really have shapes themselves.

So Strawson must, onpain of inconsistency, insist that everything has conscious states. Not something 'like'consciuos states, but the real deal. Thus my wardrobe is conscious. My hand is. My ear is. A speck of dust is. Properly conscious.

That's insane, of course. Why? Because our reason tells us loud and clear that those things are not conscious. That's what insanity is. A person is insane when they have rationally derailed in some spectacular fashion.

Our rational intuitions - from which all evidence is derived - tell us that conscious states are the preserve of minds and that minds do not have the properties we identify with material objects. So our reason is clear: material objects do not possess conscious states. That's why we attribute minds to matter and not consciousness. We do not think the cat's fur is conscious or that a lump of ham is. We think the cat has a mind - that there is 'a' soul in there or associated with it, and it is that - and not the skin and bones - that has the conscious states (as it is with us too).

I argued that Strawson's argument is that everything is conscious. So my cupboard is, as are the atoms composing it, and whatever they are composed of. Which is absurd, of course, but is what one would seem to be reduced to saying if one thinks you can't get out more than you put in.
I also pointed out that this also seems to mean that other properties, such as the property of being morally responsible, would have the same implication. If we can't get out more than we put in, then we can't get moral responsibility out unless atoms are morally responsible too. So now atoms are blameworthy and so is anything made of atoms.
If one remains a materialist despite being driven to these lengths, then I think one has discovered that one's materialism is a faith.

The premise you've added to get to the conclusion is that there cannot be causation between different kinds of object.
There's nothing to be said for that premise. It appears false - my mind does not appear to be material, yet does appear causally to interact with things quite dissimilar to it - and even if it were true, the fact my mind appears immaterial not material would mean you should conclude that the sensible world is mental, not that the mental is material.

I think we can distinguish between two distinct 'problems' where materialism and consciousness are concerned. The first is the fact that material objects do not appear to be in the business of having conscious states. It is prima facie implausible that minds have shapes, or thoughts locations.

Panpyschism is clearly no solution to that problem. For supposing that all material entities have conscious properties does precisely nothing to overcome the intuition that no material thing has them.

The other problem is the problem of getting out what you haven't put in. If conscious properties are thought to emerge from material objects, then one might think that this cannot be unless the material objects already have such properties, for otherwise have a kind of alchemy.

Panpyschism would solve that problem - if problem it be - becuase now everything has conscious properties and so nothing has been gotten out that wasn't there in the first place. It solves it at the cost of insanity, of course: for it is plainly absurd to suppose that every material thing has conscious states.

But note that this would presumably apply to all manner of other properties associated with having consciousness, such as the property of being morally responsible. I mean, that property - the property of being deserving of blame and praise - can surely no more 'emerge' than consciousness can. So it would seem that a well motivated and consistent panpyschist will have to hold that everything is morally responsible. When Basic Fawlty thrashed his car for breaking down, he was giving it its just deserts, it would seem.

Damage the brain, damage the mind. Destroy the brain, destroy the mind. Alter the brain, with alcohol or LSD for instance, alter the mind. — hypericin

So, your reasoning seems to be that if A affects B, then A 'is' B. Otherwise I don't see how you get from 'damage to the brain damages the mind" to 'the mind is the brain'.

Yet that principle is clearly false: if A affects B, that does not entail that A 'is' B. I mean, by that logic my mind is alcohol. Drinking alcohol affects my mind. Therefore my mind is alcohol! Damaging my brain affects my mind, thus my mind is my brain. Bad reasoning, Sir!

What you are saying is affecting my mind. So it turns out I am you! And you are me. Who'd have thought?

As for your claim that if the brain is destroyed then so too is the mind - a claim I think is not true and begs the question - the reasoning is once more faulty. If I destroy a two storey building's first storey, I also destroy its second, for no second storey can exist absent a first. By your logic that means the second storey is the first storey.

Bad reasoning, Sir!! Yet it is reasoning of the above kind that is all I have so far received by way of 'evidence' that the mind is the brain. It's all I ever get. I am told affecting the brain affects the mind and that, people seem to suppose, is somehow a demonstration of materialism about the mind. Odd. It is no such thing, it is just a demonstration of the way people can be blind to how bad their reasoning is when they are in the grips of a dogma.

But the claim Strawson makes is that phenomena are experience-involving or experience-realizing. This means that the phenomena we interact with realize or involve our experience. An aspect of the object reacts to experience. If they did not, then his panpsychism would fall apart on that alone. — Manuel

I don't see the relevance of the distinction. For anything to be experience-involving, an experience would need to be realized, surely. And it is that - the realization of a conscious state - by material substances that (supposedly) needs to be explained. And thus to explain it without supposing that conscious states can just emerge from ingredients that are themselves not conscious we would have to suppose that everything material 'realizes' conscious states.

Consciousness arises through complex interactions in the brain. The brain is molded matter. Why would this thing consciousness coming out of brains not be physical too? We'd have an interaction problem - substance dualism - that we can do without. — Manuel

Flagrantly question begging. No it doesn't. Consciousness is a property of immaterial entities called 'minds'. There is no - no - evidence that such entities are material, as I keep saying. There is just a widespread assumption that everything is material. (If you know of an argument that appeals to self-evident truths of reason and arrives thereby at the conclusion that minds are material without helping itself to a materialist assumption, I'll accept that there is some evidence that minds are material, but not otherwise).

Why aren't tastes, smells, textures and so forth physical things? Why not? Tastes from the tongue, smells from the nose, etc. — Manuel

Missed the point. The point is that most of us have rational intuitions that represent our minds not to be in the business of having shapes, textures, and so forth. As material objects, by their very nature, are in the business of having those kinds of property, our minds are being represented by our reason to be immaterial, not material.

You could just insist that the representation is mistaken - and it might be, of course - but you'd need countervailing evidence, not just an assumption.

I don't really know what you mean by 'information'. But if something 'possesses' information, then the information is a property of the thing, not a thing itself.

But anyway, this is all by-the-by really. I don't think there is a problem as such in holding that conscious states are states of a material object. Anything is possible. I just hold that we don't have any evidence that conscious states are states of material objects; all the evidence we have is that conscious states are states of immaterial objects.

I also have no problem with emergent properties. So I don't buy the problem that Strawson is invoking panpyschism to solve. When it comes to a thing's properties, one has ultimately to say that it just has them. So I don't see a problem in saying that complex objects could have properties of a different sort from the simpler objects from which they are constructed. Explanations are nice, but they're not always needed and not everything can stand in need of one else nothing could be explained. (And I don't think syaing 'everything is conscious' is really an explanation of how my brain is conscious; it's sort of like me asking 'how does this computer work?' and getting the answer 'all computers work').

I just think there's no evidence that minds are material things - and thus no evidence that consciousness is a property of something material - and stacks and stacks that they're immaterial things.

As I see it, what contemporary philosophers of mind are trying to do is show how it is 'possible' for consciousness to be compatible with materialism. But that's not evidence that our minds are material and that consciousness is in fact a property of any material thing. I'm personally perfectly happy to grant the possibility - I just think there's no evidence for it, and a load against.

My body is capable of being 100ft tall. But it isn't. I have no evidence I am 100ft tall and plenty that I am not. SImilarly, it is possible that my mind could be a material thing, for I think anything is possible. But I have no evidence that my mind is a materail thing and a lot that it isn't.

What's at bottom are the ultimates, which involve or realize experience. — Manuel

But an experience is a conscious state - to be experiencing something is to be in a state of consciousness. Indeed, that's why I can just as well say "I am conscious of a pain" as I can "I am experiencing a pain".

Anyway, the dilemma is this: if 'ultimates' is a name for 'we know not what' then there was no need to be a panpsychist, for consciousness is still emerging from that which is not conscious. On other hand if ultimates are conscious states, then we have everything being conscious, which is absurd and only underlines why the materialist assumption behind all of this needs to be given up (like I say, if one does not give it up at this point, when will one?)

And yet, as Chomsky points out in his very insightful essay The Mysteries of Nature: How Deeply Hidden?, this intuition is false. — Manuel

That's question begging. These people 'assume' materialism and so assume at the get-go that any and all intuitions that imply that there exist immaterial things are false.

There's no evidence that our minds are material. None. There's an assumption that materialism is true, that's all. And then there are a lot of philosophers who make this assumption and then note the problems it raises and then try and solve them. Which is a perverse waste of time - these philosophers are cut from the same cloth as those who in ages past would have spilt much ink debating how many angels one can fit on a pinhead.

Rational intuitions are our source of insight into what's what. There's nothing else to appeal to. All of our rational intuitions tell us minds are immaterial, not material. Like I say, I know of 13 arguments for immaterialism about the mind. I don't know of a single one for materialism about the mind. I'm all ears, but I want an argument that appeals to self-evident truths of reason and arrives by means of them at the conclusion that our minds are material without just assuming that they are.

"It is said that we can have no conception how sensation or thought can arise from matter, they being things so very different from it, and bearing no sort of resemblance to anything like figure or motion; which is all that can result from any modification of matter, or any operation upon it.…this is an argument which derives all its force from our ignorance. — Manuel

THat's a straw man. THe claim is not that matter cannot have consious states due to conscious states being so very different from other states and thus being incapable of being 'caused' by the material object. No dualist would make such an argument, for they hold that immaterial minds can causally interact with material entities - and so hold that very different things can causally interact.

My reason tells me that it makes no sense to wonder what my mind looks or smells or tastes like. Yet my reason tells me that it does make sense to wonder what something I can see might feel like, or taste like, or smell like. So, my reason is telling me, then, that my mind is not in the business of having properties such as shape, smell, taste, texture. Not, in other words, a material object.

Similarly, my reason tells me - for I am not insane - that it makes no sense to wonder what something I can see or touch 'thinks' like. Hence the manifest implausiblity of panpyschism. Once more, then, my reason is making representations that imply my mind is not a sensible object.

My reason tells me that my mind is indivisible - the very notion of half a mind making not a blind bit of sense. My reason tells me no less surely that all material objects are divisible. Again, then, I am being told that my mind is not a material thing.

And on and on it goes. Note: none of these are arguments from ignorance. That's a myth - teh myth that the only reason anyone was an immaterialist was due to not having done enough science (as if Descartes or Locke or Berkeley would change their positions if they were living today - they would not, as anyone who has read them would know). THey are appeals to rational intuitions.

We could reject all such rational representations as mistaken if they conflicted with some larger body of more powerful rational intuitions. But they don't. What they conflict with is a widespread assumption that materialism is true. That's all.

I agree that panpsychism is implausible. But it seems that it is not an attempt to deal with the supposed problem of interaction. Rather, it seems - given what I have just read above - that it is motivated by the need to avoid having to suppose that matter which is not conscious can, in some combinations, somehow give rise to consciousness. Just as a material object's shape cannot emerge from that which has no shape, likewise with respect to consciousness. And thus consciousness is absurdly attributed to everything, as if that's a 'solution' (we can't solve philosophical problems by going mad).

What you say about information seems to me to involve a category error. Information is not a substance, but a property of a thing. So, I have some information, but I am not the information.

I agree, however, that there is no problem of interaction. There is no reason to think that radically dissimilar kinds of thing cannot causally interact. And we have powerful prima facie evidence that they do - for my mind seems regularly to be causally interacting with my body, yet my body is not a mind but something else entirely. And even if there was a problem of interaction, it would not imply materialism about the mind, but immaterialism about the sensible world.

According to Strawson's materialism, it does not follow that things need to be conscious. What follows is that the phenomena we interact with in the world are experience realizing or experience involving. In other words objects have those properties which must interact with experience. This does not mean that objects themselves are conscious. — Manuel

I fail to see how they're not conscious. They'd surely need to be in order to avoid having to posit a new emergent property of consciousness? If conscious states can somehow emerge from that which is not conscious, then his panpsychism is unmotivated. If conscious states cannot emerge from that which is not itself bearing conscious states, then everything would be conscious. Just as you can't get something shaped from combining elements none of which have any shape, so too you can't get consciousness by combining that which is not conscious - that's his case, I take it? So then full-blooded conscious states - not some mysterious we-know-not-what - must be attributed to everything.

There is no evidence for his view. But there is no evidence against it. — Manuel

There is evidence against it: all the evidence in support of immaterialism about the mind. My mind appears to be nothing remotely like a material object. Everything - but everything - our reason tells us about our minds conflicts with the materialist thesis. I don't know of a single good argument for materialism about the mind. I know of about 13 for the immateriality of the mind. Make that 14 if Strawson is correct and a materialist is committed to panpsychism, for panpsychism is manifestly false.

So if materialism is true, then everything must be conscious if anything is?

What possible reason is there to be a materialist given it has such absurd implications? It's perverse. No evidence it is true and plenty that it is false.

I am conscious. If I then assume - just assume - that I am my material body or some part of it - then I must assume that some complex material stuff has conscious states. As I think that no properties can emerge from that which does not have those properties, I must conclude that the simpler stuff from which my material body is made has conscious states. And as my cupboard is made of that same stuff, it has conscious states too. At what point does one revisit the assumption that one's mind is a material thing? Ever? Is there no conclusion too absurd that a materialist will not embrace it?

I still do not see what problem it solves.

If the 'problem'is something to do with material entities having conscious states, then how does assuming that material entities have conscious states solve that problem?

It doesn't make sense.

What is the problem to which panpsychism is the solution?

I don't want to be told 'the mind body problem'. I want specifics.

A thought experiment. Imagine two families both think they have booked a particular table at a restaurant, but the restaurant has a policy of double-booking for whatever reason.

The two families turn up, and the restaurant manager just gives one of the families - family A - the table and gives the other family - family B - an inferior, cramped table in a less desirable location.

Family B are understandably pissed off. They should be pissed off at the restaurant manager, but they've decided to be pissed off at family A instead. And the parents of family A are behaving a little rudely.

If you want - for it doesn't matter much for the sake of the thought experiment - make the parents of family A incredibly rude. Perhaps they even try and take the condiments from table B because their own have run out or something. Obnoxious behaviour to be sure.

Now imagine that the parents of family B, outraged at this behaviour, decide to throw spears at the innocent members of family A. The parents of family A are good at fending off the spears and preventing them hitting members of their family. But family B are intentionally throwing so many they intend to overwhelm family A's ability to fend them off and hit some of the innocent family members. That's their intention.

I think you're a moral idiot if you think that's morally ok. That is, if you think family A's tactless and unjust behavour justifies the parents of family B in throwing spears at the innocent members of family A, then you're morally bust. What the parents of family B are doing is evil, plain and simple.

Family A's parents have guns. Family B's parents are throwing spears at their innocent family members. Are the parents of family A entitled to use their guns to stop the parents of family B doing what they're doing?

I think the answer is obvious: yes, of course. Hell, I am entitled to do so, and so are you. The parents of family B are intentionally trying to kill the innocent members of family A. Their deaths are not a foreseen consequences, but intended.

Now imagine that the parents of family B have covered their bodies in little tiny innocent people. Thousands and thousands of them. Every square inch of their body is covered in a skin of innocent people. And the parents of family A know this. And so they know that should they use their guns to try and stop the parents of family B from doing what they are doing, they will inevitable kill hundreds of the tiny innocent people covering the bodies of the murderous parents.

Are they still entitled to use their guns?

Obviously they are.

It is self evident that the mind cannot be divided. One cannot, for instance, attribute half a mind to someone.

Thus, the mind has no parts (for if it had parts it could be divided).

As all material things can be divided, this demonstrates that the mind is not a material thing.

Minds are objects. They have properties. One of them is consciousness. Conscious states are states of mind, just as a shape is a state of a material object.

This is why I am the same person no matter what mental state I am in. It is why I am the same person either side of an interruption in my conscious states.

Just to be clear then, your view is that premise 2 in this argument

1. If what makes a moral statement "Xing is right" true is my having attitude Y towards X, then if I have attitude Y towards the act of raping Jane, then the statement "Raping Jane is right" will necessarily be true if I say it.
2. If I have attitude Y towards the act of raping Jane, then the statement "raping Jane is right" will not necessarily be true if I say it
3. Therefore, what makes a moral statement "Xing is right" true is not my having attitude Y towards X. — Bartricks

Is false.

You think that if you approve of raping Jane, then necessarily it is morally right for you to do so.

That's absurd. You stand refuted.

It is self-evident to reason that if A is bigger than B, and B is bigger than C, then A is bigger than C.

It is self-evident to reason that arguments of this kind:

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

are valid - that is, their conclusions are true if their premises are.

And it is self-evident to reason that if you approve of raping Jane, it does not follow of necessity that it is actually morally right for you to do so.

Now, you can double-down if you want and insist that it is in fact right, but that's no different in terms of rational credibility than just insisting that the above argument form is invalid because you have a theory that says it is.

Reason is the only source of knowledge (sense perception can only provide one with evidence of something insofar as our reason tells us to take such sensations to be 'of' things - to be of a world - and so on). For to know something is to have acquired a true belief in a manner approved of by Reason. And philosophy itself is just the practice of using reason to find out what's true.

As for 'mind', the term refers to an object that bears mental states.

The mind is the self. I am my mind I am my self. So if Buddhists deny the self, then they are either denying the mind, or playing fast and loose with language.
But anyway, they're just another bunch of dogmatists who think they know it all already.

But it is rather pointless if what we are interested in is what's true. I mean, don't we want to know whether we have actually lived before and will live again? One doesn't learn the answer to that by simply noting that this or that group of people have a tradition of believing in it. We must follow the actual evidence - that is, we must follow reason. To do anything else is to assume one knows the answer already.
So it really doesn't matter what the bible says or some Buddhist thinks. What matters is what Reason says.

I gave three arguments in support of the thesis. Are our minds divisible? No.
Would they be divisible if they had parts?
Yes.
Therefore they lack parts.
If they lack parts they're uncreatable.
If they exist and are uncreatable, then they exist and have not been created.
If they have not been created but exist, then they have always existed.
Our bodies have not always existed, thus we have existed prior to our bodies existing.

That's just one argument - what's wrong with it?

I mean, it is the product of thought, but surely that is not a fault? Thought - reasoned reflection anyway - is our source of insight, is it not?

So where is the error in my reasoning above?

The mind is the object that has mental states. Consciousness is such a state. It is not itself the mind. Otherwise an 'unconscious mind' is a contradiction in terms - which it isn't.
Consciousness is a state, not an object. If you go unconscious you do not cease to exist.

It is the mind, not our consciousness, that is the object of reincarnation. There has to be something that lives a life and that has lived other lives. Two lives can be radically different, yet lived by the same mind. It's the mind that is that thing. That's why two lives that have no conscious states in common can still be lived by one and the same mind.

What an angry Hugh you are! You think that freezing water divides it, yes?
It doesn't. It just changes its state. That's obvious.

Now baby steps: changing a mind's state, does not divide it.

You can't divide a mind

When someone who doesn't have any philosophical training or aptitude responds that you can divide a mind because you can change its states, they are being as confused as someone who thinks that freezing water divides it. You.

So, just to be clear, if I said to you 'I want half that cup of water' you would freeze all of it and give it all to me and then be very surprised and confused when I say 'er, that's not half - that's all of it'.
Hmm. Did well at school did we?

My analogy was a good one - indeed it is not 'mine' at all, but a standard one used to show those capable of being shown such things that minds and mental states should not be conflated.

Some people are too confused to reason with.

I knew the instant I mentioned ice that someone would say 'er, but a block of ice can be divided'.

The point - which you missed - was that simply changing water from a state of being liquid to a state of being solid does not, in and of itself, constitute dividing it.

I await you telling me more about the properties of ice.

You shouldn't follow the confused masses here and conflate consciousness with the mind.

The mind is the object that is conscious. That is, it 'has' consciousness as one of its properties. But it is not itself consciousness - that's a category error of the sort Banno and others who don't know their stuff are wont to make.

Memories, desires, thoughts, hopes and so forth are all states of mind, not constituents of the mind. That's why if you think less you are not less of a mind than if you thought more, etc.

But the arguments - two of them anyway - establish that our minds exist with aseity. That is, they exist without having been caused to exist. That entails that God did not create us. There's no problem with that - it's not inconsistent with the three essential divine attributes. But it does conflict, it would seem, with something the bible says. However, the statement it conflicts with is an incoherent one. And anyway, the bottom line is 'so much the worse for scripture'. At some point one has to choose between following Reason, and following tradition.