Well, I clearly wasted my time with that explanation above, didn't I? Sigh.

if you are correct, your argument is impossible. I wish I could help. — Cheshire

What on earth are you on about? No it isn't! And what 'help' do you think I need? I have made an argument apparently demonstrating beyond all doubt that our faculties are the product of design, not chance. And you think I need help?

I consider it cavilling because we are talking merely about the appropriate term to use to refer to a mechanism that may or may not be capable of generating states of awareness in its possessor.

For an analogy, imagine a faker of banknotes has made a machine for printing notes that are physically indistinguishable from genuine currency. That machine is not printing money. It is printing fake money. What do we call such a machine? Well, that's not a philosophical question and it really doesn't matter when the point that is being made is that this machine - whatever we may call it - is not printing money, even if it is identical, mechanically, to those machines that do print money. For whether a machine is printing money or fake money is not a matter determined solely by how the machine functions or the intrinsic properties of its product, but also its relational properties.

Your analysis of my argument is wrong. Again, using the forging machine above to illustrate: we have a machine that is spitting out notes that are physically indistinguishable from genuine banknotes. Is it printing money? Well, that depends on who made it and who is using it, right? You can't tell from just inspecting and describing the machinery in ever more detail or scrutinizing the notes themselves, for by hypothesis the notes are physically identical.

That's what I am arguing in respect of the faculties that create some of our mental states, namely those by means of which we gain awareness, if gain it we do. Those states are the pieces of paper that the mechanism is producing. To be capable of giving us awareness they need to have 'representative contents'. In this analogy that is equivalent to the property of being a genuine banknote as opposed to a fake. And I am arguing that to have that status, the mental states in question need to have been produced by a mechanism that was designed to give its bearer the contents in question, or is being used to do so. So in the analogy, that would be like saying that the machine that produced the note needs to be being used to do so by some legitimizing government agency.

I am arguing, then, that if our mechanisms of mental state production are the creation of blind evolutionary forces, then the mental states they create in us, though introspectively indiscernible from the genuine article, will be fake and thus will not give us any genuine awareness of anything.

Any why is this? For I have not blankly stated it, but argued for it. Here's why. In order for a mental state to give one an awareness of something, the mental state in question needs to have 'representative contents'. That is, it needs to represent something to be the case. It needs, in effect, to be telling us something.

However- and this is my argument - only minds can make representations. For 'representing' is an activity - an activity of mind. Mental states themselves do not make representations. That is as confused as thinking that thoughts think. Thoughts do not think. Thinkers think (and they think by having thoughts). But thoughts do not themselves 'think'. And likewise, no mental state makes a representation. Minds make representations, but mental states do not.

How, then, can a mental state 'tell us' anything about anything? Well, the same way a note can. A note saying 'close the window' is not itself telling you to close the window. Rather, someone is using the note to convey to you their desire that the window be closed. When that's the case, we may say "the note told me to close the window", but this is not literal: we mean by it that someone told us to close the window by means of the note. Likewise, our mental states cannot literally make representations. But we can talk about them as if they do when they are being used by an agent to make representations.

But if the faculties that generate our mental states - including those we take to have representative contents - are built by blind forces, then the states in question will not have any representative contents. And thus they will be incapable of giving us any awareness of anything, even though our introspective situation will be indiscernible from what it would be if they were genuine representations.

Utter nonsense. This is now too tedious for words.

I have not read the bible and I am not a Christian and so I have not given these matters much thought. But I take it that the basic problem here is that the bible says that the universe of our sensible awareness was created in 6 days some 6,000 years ago, whereas supposedly the scientific evidence is that it was created much, much more slowly.

However, I see no strict inconsistency. For as Bertrand Russell pointed out, it seems entirely possible that the whole world and everything in it popped into existence in its entirety last Thursday. If that was in fact the case - that is, if the world and every thing in it popped into existence last Thursday - that would not be inconsistent with any scientific data, but with certain additional assumptions that scientists have mistakenly made (such that the processes that have been going on since last Thursday have been going on for much longer and are responsible for much more). And it is not as if we'd stop using scientific methods to find out about the world.

What goes for the last Thursday thesis surely also goes for the biblical account of creation. That is, it is not inconsistent with any scientific data, but rather is inconsistent with certain additional assumptions that scientists typically make, such as that the processes that turned B into C, also turned A into B. That may be an entirely reasonable assumption if other things are equal, but surely any rationally capable Christian would argue that other things are far from equal.

Another confusion, it seems to me, is between time and events. Time is not made of events. But events are taken to be the guide to how much time has passed. And again, that's quite reasonable other things being equal. But there is no inconsistency in granting that all the events the scientific evidence says have occurred, have indeed occurred just at a much faster rate in the initial stages (a 'two hour' film can be watched in about 10 minutes if one speeds it up - same events occur, just faster). There is, then, really no upper limit on how many events can occur in a day. And thus the six day thesis (and the 6,000 years ago thesis) is consistent with the occurrence all of the events the scientific evidence implies have occurred.

Obviously one would need good independent reason to think the world was created in 6 days etc, but the point is that there seems no strict inconsistency with scientific data.

As for apparent internal inconsistencies within the bible - saying one thing here and another there - these do not conflict with scientific evidence, but rather with the law of non-contradiction. And that isn't really a problem given that God can do anything, including violate the law of non-contradiction. So bearing that in mind, I think there is no problem being a literalist about the bible.

My claim that there can be introspectively indiscernible states from those that give us awareness, yet that do not give us any awareness due to lacking representative contents.
— Bartricks
That's incoherent. Introspection employs self observation and implies self awareness. — InPitzotl

There's nothing incoherent about it. Let's use the visual analogy. There can be a visually indiscernible painting from a genuine Van Gogh, and it not be a Van Gogh. Presumably you think that's incoherent. It clearly is not. Fakers endeavor to create them. And sometimes they succeed.

Note too that to say two states are introspectively indiscernible, is not to suppose that there is someone who is failing introspectively to discern them. You seem to think it does suppose that (Christ knows why - that's like thinking that the claim there can be a visually indiscernible Sunflowers painting that is not by Van Gogh supposes that there is someone who is visually failing to discern them).

The problem would be if you claim both that they are visually indiscernible and to have visually confirmed which is the real one — InPitzotl

What are you on about? The claim that two paintings - a genuine Van Gogh and a fake one - are visually indiscernible is not equivalent to the claim that the two paintings are indiscernible tout court, is it?

Similarly, the claim that two mental states - one a genuine state of awareness and the other not - can be introspectively indiscernible is not equivalent to the claim that those two states are indiscernible tout court, is it?

Indeed, look at what I am arguing. I am arguing that we 'are' aware of things - for to hold that we are unaware of everything is to have a self-refuting position - and thus we can know that at least some of our conscious states genuinely represent things to be the case. And we can also know, by the kind of careful reasoning that I have engaged in above (and that you seem incapable of following, perhaps because you are so determined that I am confused), that this would not be possible unless our faculties were not wholly the product of blind evolutionary forces. And thus we can, by careful exercise of our faculty of reason, realize that some of our mental states are genuine representations. We are not noticing this by introspection, but by intellection.

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Jackson-Pollock

There are a lot more famous paint flinger like him.

Thank you so much. — Sir2u

Indeed. I think everything you've said is a load of Pollocks.

No, that's not how a premise 'works'. I boiled the argument down to a syllogism for the sake of clarity. I then provided independent support for the first premise. And it wasn't a 'rant' about a pie and sky-writing, it was a carefully crafted case.

But anyway, you say this:

If our faculties of awareness are wholly the product of unguided evolutionary forces, then they do not give us an awareness of anything.

Now, at first glance this appears like a contradiction. If we have awareness by way of X we do not have awareness. The reason is because of the contradiction. We can not both have awareness and not have awareness. — Cheshire

There is no contradiction because a faculty and what it gives one an awareness of are distinct. For example, if my eyelids are sealed shut then I still have a faculty of sight, but it is now impotent to make me aware of anything. I have sight, but I am unable to see.

So there is no contradiction, then. Admittedly someone could object that if our faculties are unable to generate any states with representative contents, then they are not really faculties of awareness at all any longer. And they'd have a point. But this would be to quibble over words and it would have no impact on the argument itself. I am trapped by our language for to date the idea that our faculties could be identical to what they actually are, yet be incapable of generating any states with representative contents, is not one users of the language have ever entertained, and thus there is no term for a faculty of awareness that has been rendered impotent in this fundamental way. I suppose I could put inverted commas around 'faculty of awareness', but that too would be misleading, for the first premise does not assert that our faculties are the products of unguided evolution and thus whether they are 'faculties' or faculties is left open. But like I say, this is pointless quibbling.

Whatever. Paint flinger.

The first premise is not false. I defended it in the OP. You need to address the argument I gave in support of it.

I don't understand your edit. My premise assumes no such thing.

I don't follow you. You haven't addressed anything I have argued.

One could say that to be conscious is always to be conscious 'of' something. But I think the same point applies and once we accept - as surely we should - that there can be fake states of awareness that are introspectively indiscernible from the real thing, then all consciousness essentially involves being in states that would involve being consciousness of 'something'. That is, they are states of consciousness that are introspectively indiscernible from states of consciousness that are genuinely 'of' things.

Re your wife's argument - well I certainly think free will provides compelling evidence that materialism about the mind is false. I wouldn't go via 'choice' though, as i think we can distinguish between free and unfree choices (though these too would be introspectively indiscernible).

I'm sure that passes for wit in a Burger King or a Kentucky Fried Chicken, but you are talking to a champagne drinking truffle muncher, so you really need to up your game. Thicky.

And the monkey-flung painting is clearly not a portrait of you. However, if your reason says otherwise, then i think it is too badly corrupted to be of any use.

No, you said my view was that we are not aware of anything. That is not my view. And it is not in any way implied by my claim that there can be introspectively indiscernible states from those that give us awareness, yet that do not give us any awareness due to lacking representative contents. You think it is, indeed you seem to think the claims are synonymous. Which is every bit as confused as thinking that if there can be a visually indiscernible image of sunflowers from that painted by van Gogh, then I am claiming that the actual Van Gogh is a fake. It's extremely poor reasoning.

Shall I help you to see how dumb you are being? (Or willfully ignorant)
Sunflowers no. 4. It's a famous painting by Vincent van Gogh. It is in the National gallery in London.

Is it possible for there to be a visually indiscernible painting that's not by Van Gogh? So, a painting that 'looks' the same, but isn't by Van Gogh.

Yes, obviously that's possible.

Now, does what I have just said amount to me saying that I haven't seen Sunflowers no. 4?

No, of course it bloody doesn't!! Saying that it is possible for there to be a visually indiscernible fake van gogh does not amount to saying that what is hanging in the National is fake. When I look at the sunflower painting in the National, I am looking at a painting created by Van Gogh in late August 1888. The fact it is possible for there to be a visually indiscernible painting that was not created by Van Gogh does not mean that what I am looking at in the National is not by Van Gogh as anyone who is allowed to use metal cutlery realizes immediately.

Me: This is Sunflowers no. 4 by Vincent Van Gogh. It's the most popular painting in here.

InPenetrablyS: You don't know anything. It is by Rolf Harris. And everyone hates it. Idiot.

Me: er, no. It is a sunflower painting by Van Gogh.

Imagine if what's in front of us was actually produced by a machine. That is, imagine a visually indiscernible image, but machine-made rather than painted by Van Gogh. Well, then we wouldn't be looking at a genuine Van Gogh, but a fake one. Right?

InPenetrablyS: What, you are saying this isn't by Van Gogh? Good, you dumb twerp, coz it is by Rolf Harris.

Me: er, no. I am saying this painting is by Van Gogh. We are looking at a van Gogh. But it is possible for there to be a visually indiscernible image that is not by Van Gogh.

InPenetrablyS: So this isn't by Van Gogh. That's what you are saying. You are unjust an ignorant internet hound farting nonsense out of your face which is also your bum.

Me: no, how are you this stupid? I am not saying that what we are looking at is not by Van Gogh. It is by him. It has impeccable provenance. There is no question this is a real Van Gogh. How on earth does saying that it is possible for there to be a visually indiscernible fake amount to me saying that this here is a fake?

InPenetrablyS: stop gaslighting me. It won't work. You won't convince me I am dumb. You are the dumb one. I know what indiscernible means. And it means you are saying this isn't a Van gogh. And anyway you were previously talking about introspective indiscernibility, but in this stupid example you are talking about visual indiscernibility. That's quite different. I win. I win in the way that I win every game of chess I play too: by moving any piece however I want. Gaslighting meany.

Well that was gibberish. Again, why do you think I am committed to the view that we are not aware of things? I think we are aware of things. But you seem to think, for goodness knows what dumb reasons (if any), that this is inconsistent with my claim that states of awareness are introspectively indiscernible from otherwise identical states that lack representative contents. Explain that, if you can.

Why are you telling me what introspectively indiscernible means? I know what it means. Why do you think it means I think we are not aware of things? I don't know what it's like to think like you do - so take me through the steps that led you to that conclusion.

What are you on about?? You clearly don't understand English. Again, no rephrasing necessary. You don't understand words. Learn English. Read the OP. Recognize that I think we are aware of things. Understand that saying two states are introspectively indiscernible does not mean they both give one awareness. Jesus. That's the whole bloody point.

Greatest thinker since Plantinga?!? Now that's an insult! Plantinga isn't remotely close to being a great thinker. Jeez. I'm in a different league. Gaslighter.

To recap: I have never, ever, ever said that we are not introspectively aware of things or not aware of things generally. Read the OP! I think we ARE aware of things.

A conscious mind is not necessarily aware of it's own consciousness. That is, the idea of a conscious mind that is not aware of it's own consciousness makes sense. The idea of fake states of awareness also makes sense. So if those make sense, then surely we can make sense of there being conscious minds who are subject to fake states of awareness, including a fake state of consciousness awareness. After all, to be self conscious requires having a faculty of introspection and a faculty of reason capable of generating representations. But they won't be doing that if they haven't been designed to or are not being used by an agent for that purpose.

It has everything to do with you not reading carefully or not understanding what you read. It said 'if', matey. If. And you ignored that. Willfully ignored it, or didn't understand its significance. If the latter then i cannot rephrase my argument in a way you'd understand. I don't know what grunts and howls would do the trick

You don't seem to understand the argument. Visual sensations cannot tell us about the world unless they have representative contents. That is, unless they are telling us something. And they will only have those, if the faculty that created them in us was designed by an agent for that purpose.
It's pointless arguing with you, but anyway, in the hope that someone somewhere will get the point - imagine a portrait artist paints a picture of you. That's a pictorial representation. Now imagine a monkey in a room randomly flinging paint at a canvas. And imagine that by some pure fluke the image the monkey's mad antics create exactly resembles the portrait painter's painting. Is it a portrait of you? No. It's just some random monkey-flung paint on a canvas. It's indistinguishable from the portrait of you, but it's not a portrait of you.
Our visual sensations are random monkey-flung paintings if our visual faculties are bot built. And thus lookingin the oven is not something one can do with bot built faculties. All one can do is 'look' in the oven.

If that person's faculties - all of them - are bot-built, then yes. They will not be capable of having beliefs, as beliefs are mental states with representative contents. And so such a person will have 'beliefs' and not beliefs.
'Beliefs' can't be true or false, so they can't have any knowledge (as knowledge requires having a justified true belief, whatever else it may involve).
In effect, all of their apparent states of awareness will be fake states of awareness.

Christ, you are either very stupid or you can't read. Quote the whole sentence. It says 'If'. What does that mean? What's the difference between saying "If p, then q" and "q"? Have you got this far in life without knowing?
If the light is green, you can go.
InPenetrablyS: "so I can go"
What? No, the light is red.
InPenetrablyS: "But you said I can go. I go. You stupid shit talking farting person"
No, I said if the light is green you can go. I didn't say you can go. The light's red. Christ! And why are you calling me stupid? I am a highly qualified driving instructor and you are trying to learn to drive".
InPenetrablyS "You know nothing about driving. You have just seen some driving, probably backwards driving and you think you are knowing about driving. I am knowing about driving and you said "go!!"

Where did I say that I am not introspectively aware of things? I don't think you're following the argument. Everytime i desvribe what 'would' be the case if our faculties were bot built, you read that as me saying that that's what is actually the case. No. I am arguing the exact opposite, as the OP makes clear.

it is important to see that I am saying a conscious mind in a state that is introspectively indiscernible from a belief with the content 'I exist', would not know that it existed if that state was the creation of faculties that had been bot built. It would be subject to no states of awareness at all. We ourselves could in principle be in that situation, though I don't think we can coherently take ourselves to be.

So as we clearly do believe some things, and know some things, and perceive some things, we are sometimes in states that have representative contents. And as that would only be possible if the mechanisms that created those states in us were designed by some agency to do so, we can conclude that they have been. Thus we are not wholly the product of unguided evolutionary forces.

I am not, however, denying that bot built things can have minds or be in mental states. I would argue that too, but that's not what I am arguing here. I am, if you like, assuming an agnostic position on what it takes for minds to exist.

Descartes point is that the belief 'I exist' is incapable of being false.
What I am arguing is that if all of our faculties are bot-built, then they won't create any beliefs, just 'beliefs' (where a 'belief' is introspectively indiscernible from a belief, but nevertheless isn't one). So, I am not denying what Descartes says. I am denying the existence of what Descartes is saying it about. If we are bot-built, then we never believe we exist, we just 'believe' we exist. And though it remains true that the belief 'i exist' is incapable of being true - and thus were we ever to have it, we could know ourselves to exist - the 'belief' I exist is not capable of being true (by hypothesis, it lacks representative contents). Thus if we are bot built we will not know anything.
We do know we exist and a whole lot else, of course.

It's just that even your insults don't really make sense. You proposed that I have read relevant philosophical works (can you tell me some of those, incidentally - ones that are not on an SEP page?) upside down or backwards.
That would require some skill. Leonardo da Vinci was capable writing backwards and so could presumably read backwards too. And he was a bright lad. So that's why it puzzled me. Why in a list of lame insults would you include the possibility that I have an extraordinary skill?

Can you explain 3 to me above

Read the OP again. I say very clearly what I mean by unguided. I mean unguided by any agency.

I don't follow. The 'or not' makes it exhaustive. So, either our faculties are wholly a product of blind evolutionary forces, or they're not. I am arguing that the former is sufficient to preclude all awareness. It is necessary for a state to have representative contents that it have been produced by a process by means of which some agency was trying to represent something to someone.

Dunning and kruger

I don't think minds are material or created. Brains are. But that's beside the point, for here I am not defending immaterialism about the mind. I am defending agency about representation. So any process that is not being used by an agent to make representations or has not been designed by an agent to make representations, is not going to be able to create a mental state with representative contents. And as those are essential for awareness, no mind will be aware of anything if its mental states are the product of mindless processes - any mindless process, be it total chance or a process of blind natural selection.

They're begging the question. I have not argued here that minds are incapable of being or emerging from matter. I have argued that if the faculties such a mind possesses are the product of blind forces then they will not be able to give the mind any awareness of anything. So mental states could still exist, but none of them would qualify as states of awareness.

I exist. God exists. I am not God. Therefore solipsism is false.

There's an external sensible world. It is made of sensations. Sensations exist as the sensations of a mind. Therefore there is another mind bearing the sensations constitutive of the external world. Therefore solipsism is false.

I have a sensible body through which I can express attitudes and objectives and so on. And I am disposed to attribute minds to sensible bodies that sufficiently resemble mine. My reason tells me that this practice is epistemically justified - that is, what I believe in this way I have epistemic reason to believe - and that it is epistemicaly responsible to infer the presence of other minds on such a basis as well. As it is unlikely this would be the case if there were no minds associated with those other sensible bodies, most likely there are minds associated with those bodies. Thus solipsism is false.

The first and last arguments are arguments anyone can use against solipsism, the second is an idealist case against solipsism.

It is ironic that idealism is associated with solipsism given that it is even less plausible on that view than others.

No he doesn't, dumbojones. Bartricks thinks there are no square circles.
Possible and actual. Most people don't have much trouble grasping that distinction. It is metaphysically possible for the law of non contradiction to be false. It is not actually false. Simple. So, it is metaphysically possible for there to be square circles, but actually there are none. But you two do have trouble with it.

Is it metaphysically possible for Dodos to exist?

Bartricks: Yes. It is metaphysically possible for them to. But they don't.

Dumbojones: oh, so Bartricks believes in Dodos! Gosh, he's so stupid and mean and nasty and he can't reason and he thinks Dodos exist. He absolutely does. He said it is mega fizzy possible for Dodos to exist. So he thinks they do. And that they're really fizzy. He's such an idiot. When he goes out he takes his mega fizzy dodo net with him so he can catch a mega fizzy dodo.

Dummo: Yeah, thumbs up.

Dumbojones: too right! I'm laughing so hard blood has come out of my eyes.

Bartricks: er, no. I said it is metaphysically possible for Dodos to exist. That doesn't mean I think they actually exist. I think they don't exist.

Dummo: glad you now agree that they don't exist. You're so stupid. You don't argue anything, you just assemble premises in logical ways and extract interesting conclusions from them. Bart-thick.

Dumbojones: Or BloodyThick.

Dummo: I'm laughing so hard excrement is coming out of my eyes!!!

Brains aren't aware. Minds are - or can be. But anyway, yes, if your faculties haven't been created by an agent, or are not being used by an agent for the purpose of making representations, then they won't make you aware of anything.
Nothing stops another agent from using Boltzmann produced faculties for the purpose of making representations. But until or unless that happens, they won't be creating representations.

True awareness requires agency because only agents can make representations (and awareness essentially requires representation).
Mental states do not themselves make representations, for they are not agents (they are states of agents, but a state of an agent is not itself an agent).

As for the false dichotomy - that mischaracterizes my view. The dichotomy I present is a true one: either our faculties are wholly the product of blind evolutionary forces, or they are not. That's exhaustive. (Note, I am not saying either they are wholly the product of blind forces or wholly the product of design - that would be a false dichotomy - I am saying either they are wholly the product of blind forces or they are not, which is logically exhaustive). If, then, they are partially designed and partially not, then it may be that they can generate states with representative contents. After all in my leaf example I did not create the leaf, but I used it to communicate something - and so though the leaf was not designed by me, it still managed to represent something.

There is no false dichotomy, then. This is why I think there is scope to argue that perhaps blindly produced mental states could nevertheless attain representative contents by being used by an agent . The problem with that move, however, is that one needs a starting fund of mental states that are successfully representing before an agent can be said to be using any others for a genuine purpose. And thus one would need there to be at least one faculty that has not been built by blind evolutionary forces. Yet if naturalism is true, then they all have.

But I did engage - a direct criticism of your opening argument. — Banno

No you didn't. I think, perhaps, you're confusing two different senses of 'criticism'. There's 'your argument is rubbish and you're a terrible person and I hate you' - that's a criticism, but not a rational one. Then there's a rational criticism where you highlight some flaw in my reasoning or a false assumption. At best you did the former, not the latter (and then Dumbojones decided to join in).

Do you want to know what sort of pie it was that was in my oven? That might help you formulate a more pointed criticism.

Ah, the tedious 'he's so horrible, let's talk about him rather than engage any of the arguments' pile on from all the usual suspects. Just go away - you have nothing of philosophical value to contribute to this debate, right? So......go away. Simple, yes?

How on earth does any of that engage with what I argued? It's like pointing out that you need to be well adapted in order to be able to make and bake a pie.