Challenge to debunkers: Can you prove hallucinations are generated inside brain :-)

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Originally Posted by David Bailey

Incomplete theories are fine if they are proposed tentatively, but so often the skeptics try to assert that their ideas are the only ones that make sense - and then they really need to have a coherent outline as to how their theory works (IMHO).

I think maybe skeptics are saying that the scientific model is the only one that makes sense because all the philosophical models are vapid. There are few hypotheses derived from these metaphysical models and even fewer experiments run to test them. Psi is claimed as evidence, but there is a disconnect between the results of psi experiments and any model. Some people even claim that there is no way to test metaphysical models scientifically.

In my case, I go out on a limb and make the claim that if everyone sat down and worked out the details of their metaphysical models---fundamental existents, their attributes, behavior, manifestations, and so forth--to the point where the models explained everything we see around us, then the models would all be equivalent. What we called the fundamental existents would be nothing other than playing with labels.

This would require the physicalists to make much more progress in the understanding of the physical world. It would require the idealists to specify the behavior of mindstuff. Right now, idealists answer all queries about the mechanisms of mind with "well, it just falls out of the fact that everything is mindstuff." This is no better than scientists saying "Well, it just falls out of the fact that everything is energy."

~~ Paul

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Originally Posted by Interesting Ian

Consciousness cannot in principle be scientifically explained. Consciousness is a basic existent.

This is a cop-out that allows people to answer all queries about mind with "Well, it just falls out of the fact that everything is mindstuff." Note that physicists have fundamental existents, too, but they do not use these existents as god-of-the-gaps excuses for not answering questions. Or, at least, if there are uncaused effects, they are simple ones from which the bigger puzzle is built.

It is possible that consciousness is a fundamental existent whose attributes and behavior are unfathomable. I don't think we should rest on that assumption quite yet.

~~ Paul

[Interesting Ian]

Originally Posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

Let me reword the question:

If I understand idealism correctly, everything is mindstuff. That means that what I think of as my "mind" is mindstuff, but so is what I think of as my body. What does it mean, then, to say my mind is nowhere but my experiences feel as if they are located with my body? Why don't they feel as if they are located in my mind, or located nowhere?

~~ Paul

Both mind or the self as well as experiences appear to be located within the body. This means that when I say I experience a pain in my little finger in my left hand, I mean it's seems that the pain has an external source (that is external to my self, not my body) and that the pain has the location in my little finger.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Originally Posted by Interesting Ian

Both mind or the self as well as experiences appear to be located within the body. This means that when I say I experience a pain in my little finger in my left hand, I mean it's seems that the pain has an external source (that is external to my self, not my body) and that the pain has the location in my little finger.

But since your little finger is mindstuff, just like your mind, how can the sensation appear to come from something that is actually no-where? And assuming we buy into some mechanism for locating no-where in space and time, why that particular place and not out in that tree outside my window?

~~ Paul

[Interesting Ian]

Originally Posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

But since your little finger is mindstuff, just like your mind, how can the sensation appear to come from something that is actually no-where? And assuming we buy into some mechanism for locating no-where in space and time, why that particular place and not out in that tree outside my window?

~~ Paul

Our visual experiences of the external world (perceptual qualia) are arranged in patterns. What I see as a blue object may lie to the right of what I see as a red object. Same goes for tactile qualia. So objects obviously have locations.

But the self? we can't see selves, we can't hear selves, we can't smell selves, or taste selves, or feel selves. Therefore unlike our perceptual qualia it has no location.

However, in the case of pain, it seems similar to tactile qualia. Thus if tactile qualia have a location so then might pain qualia.

We experience pains in our own bodies rather than a tree outside, or someone else's body, because I guess the pain is a warning that ones body has become damaged.

I really don't know where you're going with this . . .

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Originally Posted by Interesting Ian

I really don't know where you're going with this . . .

I'm trying to understand how amorphous mindstuff gets fragmented and individuated so that it appears as if things have discrete physical existence. I'm trying to understand why some of the mindstuff appears as physical objects while some other mindstuff is apparently no-where and no-thing. I'm also trying to understand how the addressing works: How do I read your mind specifically during a psi experiment, rather than just getting wild random static in my brain?

~~ Paul

[Interesting Ian]

Originally Posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

I'm trying to understand how amorphous mindstuff gets fragmented and individuated so that it appears as if things have discrete physical existence. I'm trying to understand why some of the mindstuff appears as physical objects while some other mindstuff is apparently no-where and no-thing.

Those experiences which have an external origin can be said to be have a location (appropriately defined). These will include physical objects, but also pains. Those experiences internally generated eg thinking about something, cannot be said to have any location in any meaning of the word.

I'm also trying to understand how the addressing works: How do I read your mind specifically during a psi experiment, rather than just getting wild random static in my brain?

~~ Paul

ESP is intrinsic to the self. So the question of how we can read others minds doesn't make any sense. In the afterlife I would suppose we will have no private thoughts since our ESP will not be inhibited by the brain.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Originally Posted by Interesting

Those experiences which have an external origin can be said to be have a location (appropriately defined). These will include physical objects, but also pains. Those experiences internally generated eg thinking about something, cannot be said to have any location in any meaning of the word.

What does external mean here, if everything is a giant blob of mindstuff?

ESP is intrinsic to the self. So the question of how we can read others minds doesn't make any sense. In the afterlife I would suppose we will have no private thoughts since our ESP will not be inhibited by the brain.

Wait, so you're rejecting psi?

~~ Paul

[Interesting Ian]

Originally Posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

What does external mean here, if everything is a giant blob of mindstuff?

External to my self. Other selves are external to me. Even my perceptual qualia can be said to be external to me since my experience of say redness is not actually constitutive of my self.

Wait, so you're rejecting psi?

~~ Paul

No I'm not.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Originally Posted by Interesting Ian

Those experiences which have an external origin can be said to be have a location (appropriately defined). These will include physical objects, but also pains. Those experiences internally generated eg thinking about something, cannot be said to have any location in any meaning of the word.

Okay, but I can affect your thinking about something by poking your brain, so it appears to have a location. How can I affect something by poking it with a physical object if it is no-where?

I can see why people call dualism with this sort of thing, when there are so clearly two different sets of rules for mental and other.

No I'm not [rejecting psi].

Then why doesn't it make sense to ask how we read someone else's mind?

~~ Paul