As for 2, all I'm going to say is that there's no need to posit something non-physical — TheMadFool

Ok, I respect that, but then there's the issue of what is physical. Is consciousness fundamental, is it part of matter, is it part of the laws of nature? Or it simply emerges from purposeless, non-conscious, blind matter?

Logic (i.e. sound inferential reasoning) to start. — 180 Proof

Kenosha Kid wouldn't agree with that. He says that the universe does not necessarily follow logic or common-sense.

The fact that the gap between what is believed by materialists, and what is believed by idealists, continues to widen, is clear evidence that progress has not been made

This is an obvious non-sequitur, even if the premise is true (which it very likely isn't). So, another extremely sloppy argument/comment. Par for the course on this thread/topic I'm afraid.

I'm not sure their claim about the lack of consensus is even accurate in the first place. I suppose it depends on who they're referring to. At least among philosophers, physicalism appears to be the majority view. That's what the last PhilPapers survey showed at any rate. And I'd be pretty surprised if the situation was much different in the cognitive sciences (if anything, its probably an even stronger majority). Not that that settles the substantive question (i.e. if something like physicalism is true) or anything, but worth noting nonetheless (since people have made claims about the lack of such a majority).

:up:

This is an obvious non-sequitur, even if the premise is true (which it very likely isn't). So, another extremely sloppy argument/comment. Par for the course on this thread/topic I'm afraid. — Enai De A Lukal

I wasn't making an argument, just pointing out what is obvious to many philosophers. If you close your eyes to the obvious, and deny it when someone points it out to you, what type of philosophy are you engaged in? A philosophy of exclusion?

:up:

I wasn't making an argument, just pointing out what is obvious to many philosophers. If you close your eyes to the obvious, and deny it when someone points it out to you, what type of philosophy are you engaged in? A philosophy of exclusion? — Metaphysician Undercover

It is exactly my problem with a part of philosophy. It is like an athlete who stops in the middle of the raceand say ''I won! That was the finish line!'' and the rest of the world is saying otherwise.

If you close your eyes to the obvious, and deny it when someone points it out to you, what type of philosophy are you engaged in?

Have you stopped beating your wife? C'mon, I'm not answering such an obviously loaded question (which, so far as the philosophic topic is concerned, is plainly question-begging and so not a productive argument either- and of course the continued refusal to engage in the topic without simply assuming your conclusion strongly undermines the anti-physicalists here.. is that really the best you can do?)

There is good news in this debate: a clear line has been drawn - on one hand, we have materialists reaching their limits and now the only thing they can claim is that there is nothing more about consciousness (if there is something at all), and this is exactly what they're doing, and on the other hand, we have the rest of the world who is simply not satisfied with this attitude, and this is not because people don't like certain things, it is simply because a materialistic view can describe some correlations, but it cannot describe consciousness itself.
Consciousness is NOT the mental processes, but how these mental states feel like.
So it is not a matter of complexity, as many materialists claim, it is a matter of principle.

Consciousness is NOT the mental processes, but how these mental states feel like. — Eugen

"How the mental states feel like" - IS a mental process, yes/no?

No, it's first person experience.

I tried googling "first person experience" and did not find anything useful in the standard philosophy sources.

Can you expand on this a bit - what do you mean by "first person experience" and "mental process" - and in what way(s) is a first person experience NOT a mental process?

Can you expand on this a bit - what do you mean by "first person experience" and "mental process" - and in what way(s) is a first person experience NOT a mental process? — EricH

Ok, let me make it simple. Saying mental processes (moving of atoms inside your brain) is the same with pain for example is like saying a punch in the face is the same thing as pain. A punch in the face creates some atoms moving in certain ways and that movement creates pain. Pain is an experience, which is produced by a movement of atoms, which in turn is not the same, but produced by a punch. I think I've made it clear now. They are not the same thing.

I tried googling "first person experience" and did not find anything useful in the standard philosophy sources. — EricH

Try more

You haven't made this clear to me.

mental processes (moving of atoms inside your brain) i — Eugen

So a "mental process" is the moving of atoms inside your brain.

A punch in the face creates some atoms moving in certain way — Eugen

I assume here that the atoms referred to in this sentence are the same atoms you were talking about in the previous sentence. I.e., we're not talking about the atoms in your nose, or in the nerve paths leading to your brain.

Pain is an experience, which is produced by a movement of atoms, — Eugen

So is this the same movement of atoms that you were referring to in the previous 2 sentences or is it a different set of moving atoms? Either way, what do you mean by the word "experience"?

I did about a 5 minute search on the phrase "first person experience". Nothing in wikipedia, Britannica, Stanford, etc.

I did about a 5 minute search on the phrase "first person experience". Nothing in wikipedia, Britannica, Stanford, etc — EricH

So you need to search that on wikipedia and Britannica. Do you have personal experiences? If no, keep searching.

As for the rest, I have been polite so far and I have tried tooffer you very simple arguments for obvious things. But I simply don't find productive to waste my time explaining the obvious more than I already did: pain is not the same with a punch in the face or toany other movement of atoms starting from your nose to your brain. If you don't like that, it's your problem.

And if you think that asking me tons of questions hoping you'll somehow find a crack in my argumentation that you could explore, you're wasting your time.
I know that no matter what logical commonsense arguments I'd bring, even in obvious areas, you wouldn't admit the reality.
Notice I used "admit" and not "convinced".

I'm a reasonably intelligent person and I've been polite to you. I may or may not agree with your position - likely not, but you never know- I keep an open mind. But if you cannot explain yourself clearly to a reasonably intelligent person, then you're never going to convince anyone that your position is correct.

My "google-fu" is pretty good. I did a good faith effort to research the phrase "first person experience" and came up empty handed. That phrase does not appear as a topic on either Wikipedia or Britannica. At this point in time the burden of proof is on you. If you can provide me with some links, perhaps I can at least understand what you're getting at.

I am not a native speaker, but by first person experience I mean absolutely any experience one can have.

m a reasonably intelligent person and I've been polite to you. — EricH

That you were.

But if you cannot explain yourself clearly to a reasonably intelligent person, then you're never going to convince anyone that your position is correct. — EricH

I think there is no one to convince in cases where things are so obvious. It's just chatter, a poor tactic to stretch the conversation with explanations hoping you'll find a soft spot to take advantage of.

At this point in time the burden of proof is on you. — EricH

To proove what? That a feeling is not the same thing as an atom?

I would like to ask you something, but please be 100% sincere. Do you really believe that your feelings are exactly the same thing and nothing more than a certain movement of atoms yes/no?

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=first+person+experience&t=brave&ia=web&iai=r1-2&page=1&adx=sltb&sexp=%7B%22v7exp%22%3A%22a%22%2C%22sltexp%22%3A%22b%22%2C%22rgiexp%22%3A%22b%22%7D

The expression is used. The concept is not obscure at all, at least to me. I'm not a great fan of this particular formulation, as it appears to be an amalgam of 'first person point of view' and 'experience'. The former being a grammatical point of view of the narrator in fiction. Experience is necessarily 'first person' in a sense as one always only ever has one's own experiences by definition, so adding 'first person' is redundant.

:up:

Of course the expression is used, but this is a philosophy forum - so I am asking for some discussion of this concept within a philosophical framework. As you can see by your link, the only reference is in a reddit forum. There's no mention of this phrase in any of the standard sources for basic information about philosophy. Perhaps it is more commonly known under a different term?

It's a redundancy. Philosophers use 'first person point of view' and 'experience' often enough, and this expression just mixes them. Depending on exact formulations it means either and both. Other synonyms might be subjectivity, sentience, consciousness, the capacity to feel, the capacity to experience. You're right that it doesn't appear in Stanford, but I'm pretty sure any professional philosopher would instantly know what Eugen meant. It least as much as they know what any of the expressions related to consciousness means.

I personally prefer to separate the word 'experience' from these other synonyms, as an experience implies content (that which is experienced) which these others, strictly speaking, do not. It's clearer to abstract consciousness from its content so that we can distinguish different senses of 'consciousness'. Sometimes people mean the capacity to feel abstracted from what is felt. Other times people mean the totality of what is felt, as in 'The realisation entered his consciousness' (crappy example).

Ah - you're not a native speaker. That's OK. It is likely that we are not going to agree, but I would first like to have some understanding of your position.

To proove what? That a feeling is not the same thing as an atom? — Eugen

Perhaps I was not clear. Here is what I said:

At this point in time the burden of proof is on you. If you can provide me with some links, perhaps I can at least understand what you're getting at. — EricH

Given that you are not a native speaker - and that these concepts are very difficult to express even for someone who is fluent - I am asking you to provide me with some references that I can read that will help me understand what it is you are saying. As I responded to @bert1 - this is a philosophy forum so it would help me if you could proved some references that would position your ideas within some philosophical framework. E.g., some type of Idealism?

I would like to ask you something, but please be 100% sincere. Do you really believe that your feelings are exactly the same thing and nothing more than a certain movement of atoms yes/no? — Eugen

I would like to give you an sincere response - but I need to understand what you mean by "feelings" - it is a very vague word which has many different definitions.

If I'm following correctly, you seem to be saying that feelings are not mental processes - so I'm trying to figure out the word "feelings" (or experiences) means to you.

So to repeat myself - I hope you can provide me with some references - and I'm not looking for a dictionary definition of feelings.

I hope I'm being clear - and reasonable - in my requests.

I'm pretty sure any professional philosopher would instantly know what Eugen meant. — bert1

I'm not a professional philosopher. :smile: In fact I'm not even an amateur philosopher - I'm just stumbling around in the dark trying to figure out what's going on.

I think I have sort of a vague sense of what @Eugen is saying, but I'm trying to get some clarity.

I'm not a professional philosopher. :smile: In fact I'm not even an amateur philosopher - I'm just stumbling around in the dark trying to figure out what's going on. — EricH

I am sorry but I cannot take that seriously. I truly believe you perfectly know what I and @bert1 are talking about. I truly believe that no explanation will do - if I say ''everything you feel'' you will ask me ''What is to feel? I searched that on google and I couldn't find anything.''. I am not a philosopher either, but I am versed enough to realize that when you don't accept something obvious, the only thing you can do is to find ways to escape that reality. So by asking me so many questions you are basically trying to obtain more information, because where's a lot of information maybe there are some flaws as well that you could take advantage of and turn the argument in your favor. Another possibility is to make ''feelings'' or ''personal experiences'' look like empty concepts.
Anyway, this is more about debating tactics, not about the truth.
It is no problem if you don't want to answer my question.

I truly believe you perfectly know what I and bert1 are talking about. — Eugen

I believe EricH. I think the misunderstandings, differing assumptions, differing definitions and perceptions are so deep and difficult to sort out in the philosophy of mind, that people are frequently completely baffled as to what others mean. I used to be like you, what could be more obvious than consciousness? Surely everyone who has reflected on the issue for even a moment will share the same concept as me! It's just not true.

Ok, maybe I've made wrong assumptions, but I cannot simply go around and give explanations for commonsensical things. If one goes to the doctor and says ''My head hurts'', I assume the doctor won't ask him what is ''to hurt, to feel bad'' and so on.

I must admit I don't really know what's going on. I just can't be the case that so many people are just lying or wilfully ignorant or something. Maybe I don't see what they see.

I have exactly the same issue: "maybe i'm missing something here". But to be honest, I think it is more likely the case of defending belief at any cost.