The structure of The Symposium and Phaedo, attributed to Plato, is of a story within a story within a story. In the Christian Bible, the gospels are retellings of stories from the life and ministry of Jesus. However, they also include within them the stories (parables) that Jesus told. — Wiki: Story within a story

So I take it that Plato's literary tricks in the Phaedo and elsewhere, as craftily imitated by the authors of the gospels were intended to make all the tales as a cumulative package more life-like, more credible therefore more convincing to naive un-philosophical people who listen to such stories?

The best and safest hypothesis according to Socrates is the hypothesis of kinds (eidos or Forms). Two “shares in the reality” of Twoness, one in the reality of Oneness. — Fooloso4

I think that perhaps two in "a half and another half are two" do not refer to some form of Twoness of the number two but to two as individuals, each being "a half"?

to acquire clear knowledge ...
[1] either he must learn or discover the truth about these matters,
[2] or if that is impossible, he must take whatever human doctrine is best and hardest to disprove and, embarking upon it as upon a raft, sail upon it through life in the midst of dangers,
[3] unless he can sail upon some stronger vessel, some divine revelation — Phaedo 85c-d

This epistemic approach might appear to match the powers and methods of the three parts of the tripartite soul. The tuning might then be finding the right balance among the three parts, however way Plato might think that possible.

To know a Form, Socrates has already proposed that [2] cannot possibly be sufficient, with only [3] having any chance of success as anamnesis gained through prodding one's own inner soul/mind and not as originating based on samples of individuals hypothetically grouped from the outside world.

when knowledge comes in such a way, it is recollection? What I mean is this: If a man, when he has heard or seen or in any other way perceived a thing, knows not only that thing, but also has a perception of some other thing, the knowledge of which is not the same, but different, are we not right in saying that he recollects the thing of which he has the perception? — Phaedo 73c

arguing both sides of a proposition, to try and achieve synthesis — counterpunch

A half-bottle of scotch helps there because the best solution is to forget the distinctions.

The idea of opposites not being mutually exclusive will come up several times. — Fooloso4

Death might be seen as a welcome release from the physical body with all its discomforts.
The pain of life v the joy of the afterlife ?*
There is a separation. Not here a mingling as felt by Phaedo. — Amity

the 'argument from opposites' (70c-72e).
It seems to operate on the presumption that 'the opposites' - those given include larger and smaller, weaker and stronger, faster and slower, the beautiful and the ugly, and of course the living and the dead - are intrinsic to the whole process of generation and decay. Also there's a correlative relationship, in that one gives rise to the other - what was smaller becomes larger, what is weaker becomes stronger, and so on. — Wayfarer

Plato gets much justifiable but undeserved grief for setting up formal and informal pairs as opposites and for being illogical in their resolution. But back in antiquity Parmenidean proto-logic was a huge advance over hand waving and its details fall far short of our modern elementary logic. Much that is obvious to us was a work in progress for Plato.

The question at issue in the contrast between upward and downward [~transcendental] models is this: whether the unity of opposites exists in the opposites or whether it transcends them. Plato in the Sophist tries [~correctly] to have both [~one for intermingling of Forms and one for participation of particulars in Forms]: the forms remain transcendent while now being the abode of opposites. Aristotle sees in this an opening for a revised, dynamic notion of species and genera. Hegel, it could be argued, tries to join sameness and difference in his own [~i.e. illogical] way. — Scott Austin (2010)

Heraclitean pairs of contraries are different than strictly formal Parmenidean contradictions. Parmenidean negation and Socratic elenchus don't work for informal overlapping interacting pairs. Plato was well aware of the logical difficulties, and for the most part presents them to the reader as a challenge for better suggestions of resolution. We haven't advanced quite enough yet to fully do that. Just try a few and see.

Plato's own Greek terms? And how do we decide on their precise meaning when it has already been determined that the dialogues can, and maybe should, be interpreted in many different ways? — Apollodorus

Plato's own Greek terms were often varied and indeterminate. Plato deliberately did not employ precise or just consistent meanings throughout his works or even within the same dialogue.

Why? Perhaps his philosophy was a work in progress with many problems and hypothesized solutions still open in his mind. He suggested many alternatives for discussion or debate but certainly not for fixed single-minded interpretation. Although Plato's philosophy can be partially reconstituted for a single dialogue as implied by the setting, events, and characters portrayed.

two particles are entangled — SupernovaGirl

That's the basis of the paradox. Are there physical particles at all or are particles a mental construct to reify our naive perceptions straight down to the subatomic level?

The video hasn’t shown that “observer” has anything do with minds. Or what exactly is and isn’t an observer. — khaled

A physical observer is an objective instrumental observer not a person. Mathematical or plain language interpretation of the observations translates objective observation into a public hypothesis. Interpretation requires not one mind but the agreement of expert minds, which takes it from private opinion or belief into a public factoid.

thesis-antithesis pairs — TheMadFool

Again, thesis-antithesis pairs are arbitrary and are logically incoherent. For dialectic to have any logical validity some whole pie, or some portion of the pie, has to be cut once into two parts A and B with nothing in-between.
Then if not A then B. But if neither A nor B, as per Hegel, then for the whole pie there is nothing left at all, and for some portion of the pie it is anything and everything else, and never some arbitrary C the 'synthesis' of A+B.

If Hegel were truly a Heraclitean, then his logic would need to be switched from either-or to the Heraclitean both-neither. For example, see Plato's bedeviling Parmenides where things both are and are not. Modern science is the strongest testament, noting that in the physical world everything both moves and does not move, and changes and does not change all times everywhere. This is one big reason why both traditional and modern philosophy are almost totally incompatible with science.

:up:

Dialectics puts the thesis-antithesis duo in a positive light, assuring the two sides that what results - synthesis - all things considered, counts as progress. — TheMadFool

Dialectics is a great method to demonstrate that neither of two incompatible points of view can possibly be correct. Thus it represents small occasionally significant progress in finding out what we don't know.

Any explanations? — Banno

That math, physics, theology, etc. can't be discussed sensibly on philosophy forums?

Wittgenstein again very cleverly discovered the obviousity of the common wheel. — god must be atheist

The common wheel took a genius to discover, some cultures never did. To dig under what ought to be obvious but isn't is one important purpose of philosophy. What more would you expect?
http://writing.upenn.edu/epc/authors/perloff/witt_intro.html

the 'relativism' of OC and 'form of life' in general. — j0e

Name calling of 'relativism', being unfamiliar to simple-minded readers (that's everyone) has been the traditional way of spitting on the work of dead philosophers to strengthen one's pretense to divergent views. The Church, fearing dismissal or opposition to its dogma of absolute morality, has done much to cause relative morality and more simply the idea of relativism in general, to be both feared and hated. But with difficulties, logic and science has made small inroads into marshaled academia to the point where relativism is becoming progressive and even cool.

Does 'form of life' imply 'relativism'? Unfortunately, not quite.

... Gadamer views understanding as a matter of negotiation between oneself and one’s partner in the hermeneutical dialogue such that the process of understanding can be seen as a matter of coming to an ‘agreement’ about the matter at issue. ... This process of horizontal engagement is an ongoing one that never achieves any final completion or complete elucidation — Wittgenstein

If both 'partners' are in the same fly bottle then their hermeneutical dialogue can only be because of different understanding of the same language. This can be corrected or negotiated. This is dogmatism.

To get to semantic pluralism we need two fly bottles with flies of two different species speaking in at least some logically distinct terms. This sort of disagreement isn't logically open to correction or rapprochement. This is pluralism.

To get to relativism, one more giant logical (not semantic) step is needed. What does membership in each fly bottle depend on? In my example above, it's their species of flyhood.

Seems to me that Witt is doing a kind of negative metaphysics. Philosophieren ist: falsche Argumente zurückweisen. — j0e

"Philosophy is: to reject false arguments -- Witt Big Typescript"

Insistent negative philosophy is a hallmark of W's analytic (analogous to Kant's 'critical') middle or transitional work. As discovered in David Stern's wonderful Wittgenstein on Mind and Language, (Intro available: academia.edu or google books)

By the time the PI was written, Witt had moved on to seeing that one is to understand a language one needs to be a player to be a participant in that particular language game.

None of us are in position to call other philosophies 'nonsense' until we understand what is sense in that philosophy. (I'm pointing at myself)

The idea of a general concept being a common property of its particular instances connects up with other primitive, too simple, ideas of the structure of language. It is comparable to the idea that properties are ingredients of the things which have the properties; e.g. that beauty is an ingredient of all beautiful things as alcohol is of beer and wine, and that we therefore could have pure beauty, unadulterated by anything that is beautiful.

(b) There is a tendency rooted in our usual forms of expression, to think that the man who has learnt to understand a general term, say, the term "leaf", has thereby come to possess a kind of general picture of a leaf, as opposed to pictures of particular leaves. — Blue Book

The Ideas/Forms are images. — j0e

In some ways, they must be.

W brings in both abstract generalizations like beauty and more concrete generalizations like leaf. Both are expressed by word, yet there is distinction between showing some leaves to a child and then some beautiful objects or scenes. A child can easily generalize from one or two leaves. This is not so easy for beautiful clouds or beautiful ideas.

Notably, the Preface to the BB is addressed to Russell to look over with "so many points ... just hinted at". I read that as a modest plea for additions and corrections from a slightly but not too different perspective.

were Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde two persons or were they the same person who merely changed? We can say whichever we like. We are not forced to talk of a double personality. — Blue Book

One has one mind in one's skull. — j0e

At a time, according to W above

these words are different instruments in our language. — Blue Book

but then

the answer of the common-sense philosopher is that surely there is no difficulty in the idea of supposing, thinking, imagining that someone else has what I have. But the trouble with the realist is always that he does not solve but skip the difficulties which his adversaries see, though they too don't succeed in solving them. The realist answer, for us, just brings out the difficulty; for who argues like this overlooks the difference between different usages of the words — Blue Book

The correct answer was skirted in

Shall we then call it an unnecessary hypothesis that anyone else has personal experiences? -- ... is this a philosophical, a metaphysical belief? Does a realist pity me more than an idealist or a solipsist? -- In fact the solipsist asks: "How can we believe that the other has pain; what does it mean to believe this? How can the expression of such a supposition make sense?" — Blue Book

A solipsist's philosophy denies 'others', therefore, since there are no others, only "I" can have pain. The solipsist's experience is purely internal without an outside world. Can a solipsist possibly agree to W's insistence of language making sense publicly? Absolutely not, and my fish in its aquarium agrees with that thinking too.

belief in mental furniture. Contra Witty, of course. Also, more salient for me, Goodman. — bongo fury

Mental furniture that would present us with mental objects has major drawbacks. The mind, like the outside world, is a complex chaotically functioning place out of where rational thought is only a small presentational fragment.

While the outside world is third person accessible and open to public observation and survey, the mind is private and we have no-one else to ask whether a feeling, sensation, motive, or attitude is really there at all rather than being a momentary illusion. We cannot directly see into our minds without some intermediary higher level conceptual modeling.

When I talk to the doctor over the phone complaining of sporadic leg pain, I have trouble relating that general sensation in words specific enough for diagnostic needs. Even at the office, the doctor must poke and prod for a couple of minutes until the problem is narrowed to the right strained ligament. Why is that? Isn't much of experience unavoidably social, conducted primarily through language?

BTW, aren't both Witt and Goodman attempting to solve the same problem of what can be said? Reformulating philosophy might not be enough to fill the gap between the mind and the word.

One at a time, please. — bongo fury

Seeing color is difficult to untangle from our philosophical perspective because we need to ignore physical, physiological, and psychological approaches to color as irrelevant to our direct model of reality. We only need to start with rational thought and its public language which above all the scientific minutia that might be raised as objections to what we do.

Having said that I'm not objecting here to any philosophy, I'm just pointing to a couple of very anti-intuitive yet on second thought perhaps obviously correct facts.

Physically we can only see light which comes in many shades of grey.

Our three 'color' sensors at the back of the eye record three slightly different black and white image frames every 1/25th of a second or so. One is brighter, more sensitive, in the higher wavelengths, one at the lower, and one in the middle range. Each 'pixel' records nothing but intensity in its range. Analogously, this is like using three connected black-and-white movie cameras, each with a different filter, RBG. The input is amazingly simple with subtle differences that are transmitted through the simplest chemical channels, much like copper wires, for complex computational processing by the brain.

What the brain does with this 'sensation' is 'perception'. The two are not distinguished in direct realism resulting in a simpler more manageable model.

So, external stimuli are only red if we say so, preferably based on universal, if not then cultural agreement.

At least all of the above.

Color is not entirely out there for us to see even under fixed conditions. Color is an evolutionary theatrical interpretive production of our minds. With more colors we can better distinguish finer details in images. Twilight removes saturation and color from the world and we literally see less. That's why driving around in the evenings is more dangerous.

Naming can only roughly cover subjective, therefore directly incomparable, ranges of colors. Can we see shades of burgundy or green without some agreed upon standard ostensive palette?

absorption, reflection, diffuse, and opacity spectra under different lighting conditions — ernest meyer

Science can only quantify instrumental readings. The readings are interpreted (guessed) to reflect some scientific aspect of nature. Personal experiences are very far from those instrumental readings because we are only presented learned useful perceptions that we can name and potentially act upon.

But Moore said he did know that "here is one hand", which raises the question - how is it possible for Moore to know that "here is one hand". — RussellA

I know with certainty that I have a back even though I cannot see it. Furthermore, this is personal subjective knowledge that I cannot doubt. You or Witt could, but I cannot.

It's important to distinguish this kind of personal certainty from Cartesian certainty of my mind, and also from personal sense-perceptual experience and opinion, and also from public scientific fact.

The color red is innate to people with normal color vision, calling it red is a learned cultural convention. To a young child there are no shades of red. Adults, especially people like artists or winemakers, educate themselves to notice shades and to expand their vocabulary for finer distinctions. Scientific measurements are not part of common discourse at all. We cannot see electromagnetic waves and what colors we do see is through complex perception preconditioned by cultural experience.

Wittgenstein's knowledge is different than Moore's I know. Empirical certainty for Witt is next to impossible, raising undeserved concerns about skepticism. However, in the reverse, if we had strong knowledge then we would be guaranteed certainty in the package.

Is your post not an example if absolute truth? — Harry Hindu

I couldn't possibly know that because I deny that your 'absolute truth' has any meaning to anyone else, further more, I challenge you to demonstrate that it does have philosophical meaning.

Your attack on 'relativism' is an ad hominem attack against persons unnamed. Once you name them they will throttle your self-refutation argument based on their own language games. For you to succeed, you would have to have them grant your philosophy and its terms such as absolute truth. But there is no reason in the world that they should or be expected to make an illogical claim of your philosophy prior to your argument just to please you.

Self refutation requires a person to say something deliberately or obviously illogical first so that you can then demonstrate that using logic. In Aristotle's argument he says just that.

OC2 is relativism. Relativism is the view that truth and knowledge are not absolute or invariable, but dependent upon viewpoint, circumstances or historical conditions. What is true for me might not be true for you; what counts as knowledge from one viewpoint might not do so from another; what is true at one time is false at another. — AC" — T H E

Does this statement not assert the absolute truth about Relativism? Statements like this defeat themselves. In asserting the truth that there is no truth, you end up pulling the rug out from under your own argument. — Harry Hindu

There is no absolute truth outside of absolutist dogma. To an antirealist, pluralist, or relativist 'absolute' truth is complete nonsense because it does not belong to any naturally sensible or logically rational language game. Before you can challenge any of these people, it is entirely up to you to say what in the world an absolute truth is. Remember that Truth is not a Platonic or platonic object but the value of a binary evaluation. Binary evaluations don't work across all plural contingent realisms, and especially not outside all realism. They may be logically inapplicable.

" 65. When language-games change, then there is a change in concepts, and with the concepts the meanings of words change.
95. The propositions describing this world-picture might be part of a kind of mythology ...
97. The mythology may change back into a state of flux, the river-bed of thoughts may shift.
99. And the bank of the river consists partly of hard rock, subject to no alteration or only to an imperceptible one, partly of sand, which now in one place now in another gets washed away, or deposited.
166. The difficulty is to realise the groundlessness of our believing.
256. On the other hand a language-game does change with time.
336. But what men consider reasonable or unreasonable alters." — W — T H E

OC2 is relativism. Relativism is the view that truth and knowledge are not absolute or invariable, but dependent upon viewpoint, circumstances or historical conditions. What is true for me might not be true for you; what counts as knowledge from one viewpoint might not do so from another; what is true at one time is false at another.— AC — T H E

To say that "Relativism is the view that truth and knowledge are not absolute or invariable, but dependent upon viewpoint, circumstances or historical conditions" is partially but not sufficiently correct in a Wittgensteinian context.
Each language game has its own rules, concepts, and meanings. In a narrow sense, at times and given circumstances, it might (or might not) be possible to have knowledge and to express truths. In other language games those same words could be meaningless or have different meanings, so propositions formerly expressed are not untrue but meaningless now, and what was known is a question mark now.

What if he raised his arm and said "this is an arm"? How would that act of holding up his arm be different from the act of holding up his his hand? How do you propose that we could confirm whether he's actually holding up a hand, or an arm? — Metaphysician Undercover

This is also correct. The rules for empirical knowledge are different than those for deductive mathematics. Empirically we can never ever be certain because nature and our senses are incorrigibly open to interpretive vagueness as well as to physical and sensory illusions.

The axioms of math are!

If Moore held up his hand as said: "This is a hand" we could look and confirm that it is indeed a hand. If he raised his hand and said instead: "This is a foot" we would know that it is not a foot. — Fooloso4

I don't think that holds. We can justifiably deny that his foot is not a hand, but there is no way to be certain, and that's the key distinction, that what we see empirically is indeed a hand. Fake barns may look like real barns but we cannot under any circumstances be certain beyond some empirical probability. If the criterion for knowledge is certainty, which is not true for any science, then we cannot have empirical knowledge.

I see the relativist viewpoint as very weak, because it avoids any commitment to any specific one. — Jack Cummins

Relativist opinions are not competing truths one stronger than another in comparison. They are opinions contingent on more or less universal circumstances, some are scientific laws, some are social conventions, and some others are personal subjective realities. What really has never been shown is that absolutely absolute truths exist at all, anywhere anytime. Moral absolutes are highly desirable dogmas, relative absolutes so to speak, but not absolute logical necessities. Plato's (relative) absolutes dogmatically require a god of logic and transcendent eternity to logically hold. He understood this much, do we?

Because someone asserts that they know, that in itself is not enough to conclude that one does indeed know. That one knows needs to be demonstrated in one of the language-games of knowing. — Sam26

To assert that I know is different from agreeing that you know that I know and again from a dogmatic we know.

No-one can reasonably doubt Moore when he says that he knows his hand, But how could Wittgenstein possibly know that Moore's hand is real and not a fake hand, and again, no scientific encyclopedia is going to help in telling us that we know whether Moore does or does not have a hand.

Therefore it would appear that both Moore and Wittgenstein are correct in their assessment of knowing but not in telling us about the type of knowledge they mean by knowing. If they cast aside metaphysical differences as nonexistent or irrelevant then they can argue past each other forever.

Sure, so we can dismiss Descartes as being unreasonable when he set out to doubt everything. But the ancient skeptics did provide reasons for their doubts. — Marchesk

Descartes doesn't need to provide a reason for his doubt because it is self-explanatory in the same way that Moore only needs to raise his hand to prove to himself that he has a hand. This kind of subjectivism is self-sufficient, absolute and certain in all respects to the subjective I. A second or third person demonstration is redundant. The ancient skeptics had a different empirical knowledge to doubt and not this self-proving subjective kind.

It's the theorem that's discovered/created first. Then the search for a proof. Math is not just challenging others to solve a stated problem, although for many that is a competitive aspect highly desirable. — jgill

Seems to me that proofs can neither be independently created nor discovered. Even together, creativity with serendipitous discovery aren't sufficient to make an Euler. Something is still missing. Then there is the issue of computer generated proofs. What kind of thinking is involved there?

Proofs in mathematics are said to be discovered, as they are logical possibilities that arguably would exist even if no one discovered them. — Janus

A popular science-math weekly used to offer challenges for readers to submit original proofs for mathematical theorems. The Pythagorean theorem received about a hundred different proofs from creative readers.

Peirce would say that there is no point missing, because there are no points at all until we deliberately mark one as the limit that two adjacent portions of the line have in common. If we make a cut there, then the one point becomes two points, since each interval has one at its newly created "loose end." — aletheist

We don't have two adjacent portions before the marker. The marker is a pointer that demarcates but does not split the line thereby making it discontinuous. The marker is not part of the line. A materialist overlay is unnecessary in math. It's cheaper to think of it as an abstract pointer anywhere to an abstract endless line in one dimensional space.

if you can represent something mathematically, that you can use mathematical logic to make predictions about it. The greater the amenability of an object to mathematical description, the more accurate the prediction can be — Wayfarer

Doesn't quite sound right from a philosophical perspective. Realism is about things and objects, but science is not. Both math and science are primarily about relations where point objects only serve as instances to an equation or to a law. 'Platonic' realism in science only acts as mental scaffolding to assist in visual modelling of possible worlds of whatever specialty is under examination. Thus the 'reality' of a mathematician might be in the world of tessellations or knots, that of a chemist in spatial orientation and partial charges of molecules in interactions. Plato himself of course had nothing to do with any of these 'realities', numbers were copies or combinations of Ideal metaphysical objects.

In line with Aristotle's solution to Zeno's Paradox, my view has continua (not points) being fundamental. I think the mathematics of calculus would be almost entirely unaffected in moving to a continuum-based view, — Ryan O'Connor

Why isn't Aristotle's solution just circular because it makes the results of a mathematical construction prior to the construction itself? Plato starts with a line boundless in both directions, then designates bounds to derive segments. Think of it this way, first mark any point on the line as the Origin to divide the line into a half-open dichotomy, then designate any other point as the unit marker to construct a fixed continuous interval. If I give up points as bounds, then how would I have anything but an endless line?

Wouldn't that depend on whether you are seeking a logic based objective prescriptive ethics or a pragmatic de facto psychological or social explanation?

In simple terms - that single evolutionary mechanism is the Living Cell, and there is no conceivable way that anyone has found to produce the true complexity of the 1st living cell from the sterile chemicals of the early Earth, without a prior living cell to do it. That is the dilemma. — Gary Enfield

Evolution is the process of any change over time. In a more narrow biological sense, evolution is random spread of differences followed by statistical natural selection of traits. General evolution is not at all concerned with the peculiarity of life on this planet but with the universe as a whole and all of its developments.

In a more narrow biological sense, evolution is random spread of differences in living organisms followed by statistical natural selection of traits. Here,we are making Life an object on a pedestal. As important as life is to us living, nature might not be making this distinction.

Where the test comes in is in borderline cases like viruses that have some but not all classified features of being alive. Are viruses alive? Did viruses come before or after bacteria?

So then I suppose that you would likely favor presentism and materialism that simplifies judgment closer to immediate wants and sensibilities. That would be an ego centered psychological approach but also subjectivist in terms of reality, in other words that there is only one reality and it is mine, and when I die the world comes to an end unconditionally. Or am I pushing the position too far into some channel?

having someone scream in agony for many years and not be able to commit suicide is more severe than suicide. I think having time, energy, and resources to commit suicide is actually a privilege in many ways. People in past often didn’t have adequate means to commit suicide — TheHedoMinimalist

Could be. In societies where culture, state, religion, or obligation were placed higher than personal needs, execution of the physically or socially unfit and suicide were acceptable and regularly practiced, I suppose on the grounds of achieving higher good or to end the pain..
https://www.forbes.com/sites/robinandrews/2017/06/26/executions-and-suicides-the-terrifying-tale-of-two-deadly-japanese-volcanoes/?sh=7e2fa3cd1a46

Though I would think that for a philosophical hedonist considering all options, it might follow more to avoid the greater evils and pains first before seeking comparatively more transient pleasures.

I think of modernity not as an age or a period in history but as exponential progress in some ways and exponential decay in others as humanity moves forward. Which leads to rapid growth in the gap between what is good and bad with the world. A prime positive example is technological progress, but so is the alarming ballooning overpopulation and ensuing loss of planetary resources. Perhaps Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four didn't actually happen in 1984 but it's coming.

Why do human interactions on the internet tend to skew negative, as opposed to positive? — GLEN willows

Interactions on the internet are a sample of humanity as a whole. Whatever you see, whether seen by you as positive or negative depends on where you are looking. Many nice religious sites have nothing but positive content. In philosophy, people who agree with you are not doing you any favors because while agreement is psychologically supportive it is in fact intellectually damaging to whatever your actual purpose is in posing a philosophical point. Only serious critiques are of any use to you, whether clothed in positive or negative verbiage.

What does this say about human behaviour?" — GLEN willows

What is human behavior? Is that some sort of material object?

how could anyone argue that consciousness ISN'T simply an integral aspect of the material brain - DESPITE the fact that the can't be explained scientifically? If they aren't - where are they? Isn't this still hopeless dualism — GLEN willows

the whole belief in a separate consciousness is based on folk psychology — GLEN willows

I'm quite sure you have this backwards. The reason you confound doctrinal materialism with brain physiological oriented scientism is to pretend to an explanation for the only thing we can be certain of, our selves.

I don't believe in dualism - b/c of the interaction problem. — GLEN willows

And that's the crux of the problem of dualism, we don't know how to logically relate our selves to a barely comprehensible illusory outside world with any of our theories. We are inventing absurd explanations out of ignorance.

But is this at all necessary? Isn't it possible that dualist hypotheses with connectivity CAN be constructed without anyone asking but where is this theory in space and how can I grasp it with my fingers?