The one data point that I think defeats physicalism (or makes it very unlikely), is the fact that I'm conscious. Physicalism cannot explain that and probably never will. — RogueAI
Argument from ignorance (from Latin: argumentum ad ignorantiam), also known as appeal to ignorance (in which ignorance represents "a lack of contrary evidence"), is a fallacy in informal logic. It asserts that a proposition is true because it has not yet been proven false or a proposition is false because it has not yet been proven true. This represents a type of false dichotomy in that it excludes the possibility that there may have been an insufficient investigation to prove that the proposition is either true or false.[1] It also does not allow for the possibility that the answer is unknowable, only knowable in the future, or neither completely true nor completely false.[2] In debates, appealing to ignorance is sometimes an attempt to shift the burden of proof.
Can you provide any reason to think that you aren't making an argument from ignorance? — wonderer1
If there was progress to be made explaining consciousness, science would have made it by now. — RogueAI
We are all in fact philosophical zombies — DanCoimbra
I expect more of this in the future. Physicalist explanations of consciousness are all pseudoscience. It just hasn't sunk in yet.
What theory of consciousness do you like? — RogueAI
Interesting turn in the last page or two. I see Dennett rearing his head in these discussions.
I think it is, even after reading Dan's elucidative posts, a really hard sell that Dennett even gets off the ground in reducing qualia to something other than qualia. The idea that "unification", "access" and "temporality" of conscious states is amenable to change doesn't at all infer, to me, that qualia are not qualia as currently understood. Its not just counter-intuitive, but counter possible-experience. In that way, even if it were true, I don't think its actually reasonable to expect a human mind to discuss the fact of its non-existence - given we operate via qualia at levels from sense experience to thought.
It may not be virtuous to be dismissive, but I do think it's virtuous to not waste time discussing something that, at it's base, appears to be not possible. — AmadeusD
But you haven't responded to the issue of you making arguments from ignorance. Why do you consider yourself competent to judge what the state of science should be at present? Surely it is not a matter of you considering yourself scientifically well informed. Right? — wonderer1
Thanks for the walm welcome. — DanCoimbra
at least conceivable that there could be cognitive machines (functional minds) outputting false beliefs about there being ineffable experiences. — DanCoimbra
What they are denying is that we have introspective evidence of qualia, and they do so by providing a somewhat detailed cognitive theory of how that comes about. I think their case is sufficiently well-argued for us to take them seriously. — DanCoimbra
everything is physical, or as contemporary philosophers sometimes put it, that everything supervenes on, or is necessitated by, the physical. — SEP
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