Your body is in the study, but your mind isn't. And you are your mind. So you are not in the study but your body is. Then you have died. We'll miss you. — Srap Tasmaner

Er, no. My mind is not a material thing - so it is not located in space. It is not my body. Not my brain, not my hands, not my spine.

Body is in study (or it is if materialism is true, which it isn't). Mind is not. Mind is seeing, touching, smelling, tasting and hearing the study via the body (if the body is material, that is). Body is not mind.

Now, do you have a point? I've presented an argument - a well known one - for the immateriality of the mind. You haven't addressed it. All you've done is point out that if I am a mind, then a mind has written my posts.

Actually a good portion of your brain is devoted to mapping your body parts and keeping track of their location in relation to other objects. — praxis

Relevance?

Well, as pointed out by Srap Tasmaner, yes; if you are going to see David, then you are going to see a large marble statue. — Banno

No, I pointed that out.

But substitution salva veritate is more about individuals than kinds. That is, "large marble sculpture" is not a definite description, picking out one individual. — Banno

Blah di blah - irrelevant. Do try and focus.

A better example might be "Bart smells; Bart is his mind; hence Bart's mind smells". — Banno

That's an incredibly rubbish example (and example of 'what' exactly? What are you trying to do?) and is not implied by anything I have said. First, 'Bart smells' is ambiguous - what do you mean? That I, Bart, am in the business of smelling things? Or that I have an odour? If the former, then yes, I am in that business. Minds smell things, or they do - or can do - if they have a faulty of smell. If the latter, then "Bart smells" is elliptical for "the sensible body associated with the mind that is Bart has an odour". And that's true too (I smell of sandalwood and cigars)

The mind is generally regarded set of faculties responsible for mental phenomena. — praxis

It is not a 'set of faculties' - what does that even mean? Whose faculties are they?

I have sight. I am not sight. I have touch. I am not touch. I have smell. I am not smell. And so on. Minds 'have' faculties, but they are not 'made of' them.

That which sees is the mind; that which smells is the mind; that which tastes is the mind. You recognize this at some level, for you are not less of a mind when you're not smelling anything or seeing anything.

It's an interesting case though. "Going [in order] to see ..." is an intensional context, and that means substitution is not guaranteed to work. (You can look for the Pieta in Florence, mistakenly, without looking for a statue that's in the Vatican in Florence, which would be crazy, or at least confused about cities.) In this case, there's at least some ambiguity because we might take "a large marble statue in Florence" to mean any such statue, and that's not what we want. It's interesting. I'm glad you brought it up. — Srap Tasmaner

Irrelevant. I mean, what are you trying to do? I have said that I am a mind. You've then said that this means a mind wrote my posts. Yes, it did - mine. The one I call 'me'.

There's a philosophical question about what my mind is - is it a material thing or an immaterial thing. And I am arguing - not asserting - that my mind is an immaterial thing.

Here's one argument (I have 14). My mind is indivisible. Material things are divisible. Therefore my mind is not a material thing.

Now a question for you: if you're in what I presume is an oak-paneled study, sitting beside a roaring fire, as you write these posts, and if you are your mind, then your mind is in that oak-paneled study, sitting beside a roaring fire, as it (?) writes. But a mind is not spatial. How can it have a location? How can it sit? Or should I instead conclude that you, Bartricks, do not have a location and cannot sit? — Srap Tasmaner

My sensible body - which if it is a material thing (that is, if idealism is false - which it isn't) - is in a study; but my mind is not 'in' any place, as it is not in the business of having a location.

Bartricks: "The David is a large marble sculpture in Florence"

Strapon: So, if I say "I am going to Florence to see the David, I can substitute 'large marble sculpture' for 'the David' saliva vajayjay"

Dummo: owned!

Christ. I am my mind. I am the one who does things. I am the agent. And yes, I, a mind, wrote this.

'X' stands for some obviously wrong act.

Rape is wrong, yes? Don't be dumb and say "how do you know?" That's a different issue - that's an issue in epistemology and that's why I said 'X'. Focus your mind on the topic at hand. Can you get an ought from an is? Yes. Here:

1. If rape is wrong, then you ought not to rape
2. Rape is wrong
3. Therefore, you ought not to rape

Done. Ought derived from an is.

Maybe you think nothing is right or wrong in reality. Then you're silly and confused. Silly because there's no reasonable way to arrive at that conclusion. And confused because it would make no real difference to my argument, for if it is 'possible' for an act to be wrong that's sufficient to do the trick, as you'd then have to accept that it is 'possible' to derive an ought from an is.

If you think that it is impossible for any act to be right or wrong, then you're even more silly and confused. Even more silly because it is harder to show that it is impossible for anything to be right or wrong than to show that nothing is actually right or wrong. And even more confused because now you'd have to believe that it is impossible for there to be oughts, and so saying 'you can't get an ought from an is' would be akin to saying 'you can't get a square circle from a married bachelor'.

What are you on about? I, a mind, wrote this. I, a mind, am in a state of thought, the content of which is that you haven't a clue what you're talking about.

What are you on about. I, a person, am my mind and I interact with the sensible world. So causation takes place between my mind and the sensible world.

Now, if my sensations are giving me an awareness of a physical world, then causation is taking place between my mind and a physical realm. Which, as my mind appears in numerous ways demonstrably to be immaterial and not physical,would be evidence that causal transactions are possible between radically different kinds of thing.

On the other hand, if we have independent reason to think no causal transactions can take place between radically different kinds of thing, then the fact my mind interacts with the world my sensations are telling me about constitutes evidence that such a place is mental and that I am interacting with another mind rather than with a realm of extended objects.

It is only the narrow minded and dumb who think causal interaction is evidence of the mind's physicality. And I case Praxis reads this, minds cannot actually be narrow.

Is that what you're working with? Listen Halfy, physical things can be divided. Minds can't. Therefore minds are not physical things.
A mug half full is not half a mug. You think less than I do. That doesn't mean you're less of a mind than I am.

What on earth are you on about?

That's half a brain. Christ. This clearly isn't going to be fruitful.

If my concept of a mug is not a mug then how can I reliably recognize mugs? — praxis

So if I recognize Tim because I've got a photo of him, Tim must be a photo?!? There's how one grasps and uses a concept and then there's what the concept is 'of'. These should not be confused. You are confusing them. The concept of a mug is not a mug. Have you tried pouring tea into it yet?

Maybe you don’t think I can tell the difference between a mug and an idea? — praxis

Yes, that is exactly what I think - and it is demonstrably true. You have stated several times now that mugs are concepts - ideas. They're not. We have the idea of a mug, but a mug is not an idea.

I have a photo of Tim. But Tim is not a photo. I have the concept of a mug. But a mug is not a concept.

You think it is, right? It isn't.

I can appreciate Lizzie Schechter’s conclusion about split-brains, that “The impression that a split-brain subject has two minds is correct”, because I don’t think that a mind requires human self-awareness and identity. Please don’t ask me to repeat this again. — praxis

Be clear: do you think minds can be divided?

Are you sure that the "answer" from the "unborn" child would be "no"?? How can you know that? As to follow you down to that road, even if I don't want to. — dimosthenis9

So imagine you don't know whether I want to take heroin or not. You're just not sure, though you do know that it is highly addictive. You just inject me with some. That's wrong, yes? Really wrong. And it's really wrong even if - as is likely - I then find myself enjoying it and get addicted. Yes?

Now back to the unborn. Maybe they exist in some other realm, maybe they don't. You don't know and you don't know whether they'd enjoy living here or not (though you do know that they'll almost certainly get addicted to it). Is it ok to just bring them here anyway? No. That'd be wrong - much more wrong, in my view - than injecting me with heroin without my consent.

But since you can never have an consent on that why we even talk about it? I can't understand really. — dimosthenis9

Clearly. So you think if it is impossible to get someone's consent to do x, then it's ok to do it?

Okay: so if Tim wants to rape Jane - so, he wants to have sex with her without her consent - then you think it is okay for him to do it? After all, it is impossible for Jane to consent to be raped, isn't it? If she consents, it is not rape. So, by your logic, as long as you want to rape someone, it is okay for you to rape as rape can't be consented to.

Understand yet? If you can't consent to something, that makes that act default wrong. Not default permissible. Default wrong. Normally very serious wrong at that.

This was a point Kant made. You can't consent to be coerced. Hence coercion is default wrong. YTou can't consent to be deceived. Hence deception is default wrong. All I am doing is noticing that this applies to procreative acts. It really isn't hard to understand, so I don't understand why you don't understand it.

I wrote that ‘mind’ is a concept. — praxis

The word 'concept' and the word 'idea' are synonyms. And mugs are not ideas. Think of a mug. That thought is an idea. It's not a mug. If you don't believe me, try and pour some tea in it.

I didn’t say anything about half a mind. — praxis

So be clear then: do you think minds can be divided? If you accept that they cannot be, then my argument goes through and you should agree that minds are not extended entities (and thus are not our brains - and so everything you said about dividing brains was irrelevant).

If you think they can be divided, then explain to me what the hell half a mind is.

That’s about it, apparently. You seem to believe that a mind is only a mind if it possesses human self-awareness and identity. — praxis

Er, where did I say that? What are you on about?

Under the circumstances $500k seems fair to me. — praxis

So I can reduce my debts by having bits of my brain removed. Okaay. What about a haircut?

Yeah I know. You didn't have kids. So you belong to "clever". I'm sure you have a research for that too. — dimosthenis9

You're sure I have 'a research' for that? What does that even mean? Do you mean 'evidence' for that?

You fail to understand simply logical things. I told you that these kind of researches can never be valid and you talk about witnesses and green cup shit. — dimosthenis9

Is that you, Peter Ustinov?

You insist that having kids is wrong — dimosthenis9

No, I argue that it is. It imposes a lifetime here on someone else without their consent; it creates considerable undeserved suffering and does not promote deserved pleasure; and those who perform such acts typically have a whole range of morally bad motives for doing so.

It's also spectacularly stupid, which may also contribute to its being immoral if, that is, we have a duty to ourselves not to be too stupid.

You rape logic. — dimosthenis9

That's a category error. But rape is a good example of an act that is wrong because the other does not consent to it. Imagine that no woman wants to have kids. Is it morally permissible to rape them? Surely not. Why? Because they do not consent to it (that's a going to be a major part of the story of its wrongness, anyway). The human race will now end. But so be it. It is more important not to make someone else do something significant - such as have sex, say, or live a lifetime in a place - without their consent than it is to procreate. Which is why it would be immoral to procreate even if they did consent, for the act will still make someone else do something significant without their consent: live a whole lifetime here.

The consent argument is a good and highly respected argument.

It is default wrong to do something to someone else without their consent.

That doesn't mean it is 'always' wrong. It's easy to dream up cases where it is right to do something to someone else without their consent. But for that to help, you then need to argue that the cases in question are relevantly analogous to acts of procreation - and invariably they are not.

For instance, it is often right to do something to someone else without their consent if that's the only way to prevent that person from coming to a great and undeserved harm. That's why it's right forcibly to educate children - if one does not, then they will come to a great and undeserved harm: they'll grow up to be ignorant in a world in which being ignorant is incredibly dangerous (and they're likely to do stupid things such as, you know, have kids).

But the case is obviously not relevantly analogous to acts of procreation. The act of procreation is not an act necessary to prevent the person you propose creating from coming to a great undeserved harm, is it?! For clearly either people exist before they are born here, or they do not. If they do not, then there is no possible harm that an act of procreation rescues them from (and thus the act has the badmaker and not the relevant goodmaker....and so is wrong). And if they do, then you know nothing whatever about their situation and so you are not justified in bringing them here without their consent, for you may be making their situation considerably worse not better.

Note as well, life doesn't have to contain harms for this argument to go through. For instance, you are clearly not entitled to inject me with a drug you'll think I enjoy without my consent, and that remains true even if I really would enjoy it.

To make a good case against the consent argument for antinatalism, you'd need to locate some great harm that the act is needed to avert.

There could be no valid research as to measure that.Even if you could ask all people on earth and the majority told you they are happier, how can you be sure that they would tell the truth?. So stop that research thing. — dimosthenis9

Okay, so all surveys count for nothing. You should contact universities and tell their researchers to stop[ doing them. Witness statements to crimes count for nothing. They 'could' be telling a lie. Thousands of people say the mugger had a green cap on - but as far as you're concerned that's not good evidence that mugger had a green cap on. Goodness, how silly you are. No wonder you think having kids is morally fine.

We are also cleverer.
— Bartricks

Really?? No further comment... — dimosthenis9

But your comments support the claim.

How do you know that X is wrong? — SolarWind

By my reason.

Anyway, you've missed the point. I derived an ought from an is. Here, again:

1. If Xing is wrong, then we ought not to do X
2. Xing is wrong
3. Therefore, we ought not to do X

Significantly, both mug and mind are concepts. — praxis

No they're not. 'Concept' is another word for 'idea'. Mugs are not ideas. We have the idea of a mug. But the mug itself is not an idea. Likewise for the mind. We have the idea of a mind. And minds have ideas. But minds are not ideas.

Moving on to minds, it just so happens that there are brains that have been medically split. — praxis

Er, no. Brains have been split. Minds, no. Again, what the hell do you mean by half a mind?

Those brain splitting cases actually underline - if underlining it needed - that minds cannot be split. If your brain is split and both hemispheres hooked up to waiting empty heads, where would 'you' go?

These are the options:

You'd sense or in some other way acquire information about the world through both. But there's still one 'you' right.

You'd go with one hemisphere and not the other. Still, only you.

You'd go with neither.

Those are the only conceivable options, yes?

I mean, here's a thought experiment for you. Let's say I owe you $1m. I then go and have half my brain removed and destroyed. Do I now owe you half a million?

No, right? I owe you $1m still. And that's because I haven't been split.

So, just to be clear, you're claiming that doing things to the brain does not affect the mind?

Why? Why would it be wrong to have 100 if one could?

Just do some research. The childfree are happier.

You seem to be misusing the word 'logical'.

Having children is wrong. It's not wrong because it makes parents unhappy. That's not my argument. I am just pointing out that the childfree are happier as a group. Which is what one would expect, given we have more money, more time, and fewer responsibilities. We are also cleverer.

For instance, this is a philosophy forum. How many of the greats had kids? Not many.

I do not understand your point. You say having kids is a choice. Yes, so? I am arguing that it is a choice one ought not to make. And there are a bundle of reasons for thinking this.

So, do you think it is ok to impose something very considerable on another person without their consent?

He coined the term 'naturalistic fallacy'. It doesn't refer to the supposed fallacy of deriving an ought from an is. Just saying. (I have read him).

If xing is wrong, you ought not x, yes?
Xing is wrong.
Therefore you ought not x.

You haven't read G.E.Moore, have you?

No, I am not arguing that.

Did yours change yours?

Again, doing things to the brain - such as removing a bit - clearly affects what goes on in the mind.
— Bartricks

What bit? — VincePee

Point. Missed.

What would that show?

Again, doing things to the brain - such as removing a bit - clearly affects what goes on in the mind.

That's not evidence that the mind 'is' the brain.

You think it is.

Some clear thinking might change your mind about this.

Is there a name for an operation that adds material to your brain, thus enhancing one's ability to reason well? I will coin one: a topupobotomy. A topupobotomy would change your mind about this.

Total nonsense. You can't seriously think this -

What we should or should not do cannot be derived from being. — SolarWind

has any meaning?

Think about this, the mind changes; the brain changes; why could the mind not be the result of change occurring to brain components (where the rate of change changes with time)? — Daniel

And there's that argument again. Same one. A change in the brain causes a change in the mind. That does not show that the brain is the mind. Christ.

Without simply assuming that the mind is the brain, show me that the mind is the brain.

Don't tell me you're confident it is. That's no kind of evidence.

Show me how the proposition "the mind is the brain" can be derived, validly, from a set of assumptions each one of which is self-evident to reason or can itself be derived from some self-evident truths of reason.

I can show you how "the mind is immaterial" can be derived, validly, from a set of assumptions each one of which is self-evident to reason 14 times.

Show me how the negation can be so derived. Just once.

If you organize all the materials required to make a brain in the shape of a straight line, I assure you, you will have no mind. — Daniel

Question begging. Your assurance counts for nothing at all. Show me that Reason assures us of this and I'll believe it.

In your analogy of the house with two floors, the kind of dependency of the second floor on the first (a structural dependency) I think is misleading when applied to the dependancy of the mind on the brain. — Daniel

The point of the example was to show that one cannot conclude from 'A depends on B' that 'A is B'. Dependency and identity are not the same relation.

But our reason represents minds to be positively indivisible. So, not 'not obviously divisible' but 'indivisible'.

To see this, just consider me. Do you attribute a mind to me, or half of one? What would attributing half a mind to me even mean? It makes no sense, right? Half a mind is incoherent.

So minds are positively indivisible. Or so says our reason. And simply to ignore such a representation of our reason is, well, irrational. That way dogma lies.

They don't have parts and talk of parts has to be treated very carefully (Plato, who also recognized that the mind is indivisible, nevertheless talked of parts of the mind, but he did not mean by this that the mind has parts in the way that an apple does or a building does, but rather that the mind has different faculties - faculties of reason, appetite and spirit. These are not 'parts' of the mind, but aspects of the mind).

Take an ice sculpture and a lump of ice. Both are made of the same stuff, but one is very complex. It does not, however, have more parts than the lump.

Minds can differ, one from another, much as the ice sculpture differs from the lump. Yet just as the ice sculpture and the lump of ice are made of the same kind of substance (in this case a divisible substance), so too minds are made of the same kind of substance, no matter how great the difference in their aspects (in this case an indivisible substance).

Anyway, what you say about reverse engineering simply assumes right at the get go that the mind is material, or that some kind of functionalism about the mind is true, and is not any kind of evidence in support of such views. Indeed, there is no evidence - none - that such views are true and plenty that they are false. One being the obvious indivisibility of the mind! So you are begging the question. You are taking it for granted that the mind is material and then speculating on that, not offering any positive evidence that the mind is material. The mind is 'not' material - all of the evidence is that it is immaterial. All of it.

I think anti-natalists like to project their own misery onto the rest of us without any sign of self-awareness. — T Clark

What an ignorant and irrelevant thing to say. First the ignorance: do a bit of research. Are the childfree happier than parents? There are lots of studies out there. I wonder....

Or, if you can't be bothered to do the research, do a bit of common sense reflection. What do the childfree have more of? Money and time. What do they have less of? Responsibility. So, more money and time. Fewer responsibilities. More money. More time. Fewer responsibilities. Hmm. It's a puzzler, isn't it - does having more money and more time and fewer responsibilities make one happier or more miserable? It's a bit like "is hitting your hand with a hammer likely to make you more happy or less happy?" I just don't know!

Then there's the irrelevance. Whether antinatalism is true or not has nothing to do with the happiness or misery of antinatalists themselves.

Anyway, if the arguments of antinatalists do no more than express their own misery - which can't possibly be true in my case, as I am not at all miserable - then presumably they should be easy to refute, as they were not born of rational reflection, but emotional disturbance. So why not try and refute them?

So basically, whether we define the mind as physical or nonphysical is arbitrary from a structural standpoint. — Enrique

I don't follow you. Our minds clearly causally interact with the sensible world. That, by itself, doesn't tell us anything about what kind of a thing minds are.

Some assume - and I think that's all it is, an assumption, not a self-evident truth of reason - that things of one kind can only causally interact with things of the same kind.

But that too tells us nothing about what kind of a thing minds are. It just tells us that they can only causally interact with things of the same kind, and thus as our minds are causally interacting with a sensible world, it tells us only that the world is the causal product of a thing or things of the same kind as our own mind. But it does not tell us 'what' kind of thing that may be.

But if you consult your reason - and it is by consulting our reason that we find out about things - your reason will tell you things such as the following:

a) that your mind cannot be divided
b) that it makes no sense to wonder what your mind smells or tastes like, or what colour it has or what shape it has
c) that it makes no sense to wonder, in respect of a sensible thing - such as a mug or piece of cheese - what it thinks like (though it does make sense to wonder what it might taste like, or smell like, or what shape it has).
d) that your mind exists with certainty, whereas no sensible thing exists with the same certainty
e) that you are the same person - the same mind - you were when you were a child, even if every particle of your sensible body has changed in the interim
f) that you are morally valuable irrespective of any and all of your sensible features, and irrespective of whether you have any sensible features at all
g) that the wholesale destruction of your sensible body is something that will harm you, and at the same time to be harmed one needs to exist at the time of the harm
f) that you have free will, yet at the same time your reason tells you (does it not?) that you would lack free will if everything you thought desired and intended was the causal product of causes external to yourself.

These things and more besides our reason tells us. Tells me, anyway, and tells countless others for all such claims have been appealed to as premises in published arguments.

Yet consider: given what one's reason is saying about one's own mind, is it telling you that it is a sensible thing, or something else entirely? THe latter surely?

For just take divisibility for starters. Sensible things can be divided. Or at least, they can if they are physical things - that is, if they take up space. For anything that takes up some space can be divided in two. One can have half a mug, half a piece of cheese, half a molecule, and so on. But not half a mind. Well, if all things that are extended in space can, by their very nature, be divided and one's mind cannot be divided, then one's mind is not extended in space and is thus not a sensible object. (This venerable argument, versions of which can be found in Plato, Descartes and Berkeley among others, seems by itself sufficient to establish that the mind is immaterial, not material).

So your objection is premise 1. — khaled

I didn't mention any of the premises of your argument as your argument is poorly formed, semi gibberish. It also contains a premise that contradicts the conclusion (you assert that mental states are not physical and then conclude that they are! Jeez). My advice, which you will ignore of course, is to stick to this form:

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

And then simply pile them up.

I'll just do it for you, as that'll save time. Here's what you should have said:

1. If an event is physical, then it has a physical cause
2. Mental events are physical
3. Therefore, mental events have physical causes

Now that it has been properly laid out - and of course, the confusion that infects your 'argument' is such that you can deny that any proper argument I lay out on your behalf was not the argument you were trying to express - it is clear that premise 2 is question begging. That is, it presupposes that minds are physical and so renders the argument impotent to 'show' that minds are physical.

Alternatively one might argue like this (this argument, at least, is not question begging):

1. Events of one kind have causes of the same kind
2. Mental events cause sensible events
3. Therefore, mental events and sensible events are events of the same kind

Now I think premise 1 of that argument is false, but I am willing to accept that it might be true as some undoubtedly have the rational intuition that it is, else the so-called problem of interaction would never have been considered a problem. So, for the sake of argument alone, I am willing to accept premise 1 of that argument. And premise 2 is clearly true.

However, in order to get from the conclusion of that argument to the conclusion that mental events are physical events (and thus that minds are physical things), one would need to stipulate that sensible events are physical events. And the problem with that is that, in light of the conclusion of the above argument, we now have no evidence they are, and stunningly good evidence they are not.

For this argument is a good one:

4. Mental events are immaterial events
5. Therefore, sensible events are immaterial events

Why do I say that it is a good one? Because there's evidence minds are immaterial - and thus that mental events are immaterial events - and no evidence that minds are material. Not that I know of, anyway. In other words, you need to deny 4 and insist that sensible events are physical events (which will then get you to the conclusion that mental events are physical events). But to do that you'd need evidence that mental events are not immaterial events - that is, you'd need evidence that minds are physical and not immaterial. You don't have any of those. I, by contrast, have a ton of arguments that 4 is true. 14 on the last count.

So, to be clear: I see no reason to think that events of one kind cannot cause events of a differnt kind. But even if there was reason to think that dubious premise true, it would not show that minds are physical, rather it would show that the sensible is mental.

If I don’t see anything original in the reply I’m not responding. — khaled

Oh boo hoo. There's nothing original in it, because there was nothing original in what you said and you just committed the same old mistakes.

Again with the confidence. You're not classically trained, right? So get a big hot humble pie and stuff the whole thing in your mouth and let me take you to school.

The issue is whether the mind is a physical thing or not. So that means one is not entitled to just assume it is one or the other at the outset. Arguments are needed. And this:

The mind is physical.
Therefore the mind is physical

is shit. (And it would be shit even if one put in lots of ---- and >s, which i say because I know you think they do important work). Valid. But shit.

So, until a positive case is provided, it is an open question whether the mind is physical or not. And thus the fact that there appears to be causation between the mind and the sensible (I say 'sensible' rather than 'physical' because whether the sensible is physical is also debatable and this issue - the issue of what the mind is and what it can interact with - can bear on it) cannot be taken to constitute evidence that the mind is a sensible object until we have established that the mind is sensible rather than immaterial. For if the mind is immaterial - a possibility that has not been foreclosed - then the evidence of interaction would be evidence of interaction between immaterial and sensible.

Is there evidence that the mind is immaterial? Yes.

Is there any countervailing evidence that the mind is material? No.

Is there causal interaction between the mind and the sensible world? Manifestly

Therefore, there is evidence that the immaterial causally interacts with the sensible world.

Is the sensible world a physical world?

Well, if one kind of object can only causally interact with objects of the same kind, then no - the sensible world must be a mental world, not a physical world.

On the other hand, if one kind of object can causally interact with objects of a different kind, then possibly the sensible world is physical and causal interaction is taking place between the immaterial and the physical.

There. That's called reasoning. It's what I'm trained to do

As ever, your argument is flagrantly question begging.
Minds causally interact with the sensible world. That much seems clear to everyone. But if the sensible world is physical and the mental realm is not, then that interaction demonstrates that the non physical can and does causally interact with the physical.
So you need first to establish that the mind is physical otherwise you have no non question begging evidence that physical events can only have physical causes.
Incidentally, the more basic claim that you are appealing to is that causation only occurs between objects of the same kind. That claim, if true - and I am sceptical - would still not show minds to be brains. Rather, it would show brains to be mental. That is, it would get you to idealism about the sensible realm, not materialism about the mental realm. Why? Because minds and their contents exist with the utmost certainty and it would be irrational to reduce the more certain to the less.
But anyway, you are clearly bound in a little nut of naturalism and won't be able to follow reason out of it.

But on what basis do you think this? You have agreed that we cannot go from 'a is correlated to b, therefore a is b' and presumably would agree that 'a causes b, therefore a is b' is fallacious too. So on what grounds do you think your mind is your brain?