Materialism and Consciousness.

[Sidhe]

Never have been able too, dyslexic, never understood punctuation spelling or anything in that context, I barely get a glipmse of it now and frankly it bemuses me how to use it, always has, I try and fail forgive me. Maybe it's my programming maybe in future I can overcome it, but atm, fat chance.

Sorry but I just really have no idea how you can speak and in contecst use punctuation, I was skipped ayear ahead at scholl but no noe could understand why all my test was incomprehensible even though I was a year ahed of everyone else. Either point out evry punctuation erro so I can find out why, btw sdoesnt work still don't get it. and every spelling mistake, btw also doesnt work I wwrite in a language that is only understandable too me and dyslexics. In conclusion whatever, if you can't understand or comprehen what I write ask about specific points, becuase it's like trying to tell a blinfd man how to percieve writinf in a physical form never got it? Sorry

This is pre edting ussually it's beter but this how it looks first draft. you see what I mean?

 

[punkbass2000]

fark

XCLXCL

 

[Birdjaguar]

@ Sidhe: I moved my post to pm. That seemed more appropriate, but not soon enough. Your reply clears things up.

 

[Gothmog]

fribble

XCLXCL

???

 

[Ayatollah So]

I thought materialism states [...] what you do right now is 100% based on what's already happened

No, Gothmog gave you the correct definition of materialism. What you're talking about seems to be determinism. I strongly encourage you to take a look at this link if you are interested in this thread. I think you will find it extremely thought-provoking.

The link will show you how
(1) classical physics is not as deterministic as it's cracked up to be
(2) quantum physics is not necessarily indeterministic
(3) most deterministic theories don't privelege the past over the present or future

And the article finishes with a reference to Hoefer's argument for compatibilism (based on point 3 above). Saving the best for last

 

[cgannon64]

Goddamn it. I'm drunk and I just wrote out a response (it was good, you wouldn't have guessed I was drunk) to every post directed to me in this thread... and I accidentally pressed a link, thus deleting my response. I hate this crap. My browser should save what I write out in the box.

I'll respond to you all tomorrow... just figured that I'd let you know I had something to say, but it's too late and it's been too long of a night to rewrite it.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Cgannon's had too much to drink,
His brain's impaired, he cannot think;
A delightful post has been misplaced
Because his tonic, with gin, was laced.

Lest we forget.

 

[Sidhe]

No, Gothmog gave you the correct definition of materialism. What you're talking about seems to be determinism. I strongly encourage you to take a look at this link if you are interested in this thread. I think you will find it extremely thought-provoking.

The link will show you how
(1) classical physics is not as deterministic as it's cracked up to be
(2) quantum physics is not necessarily indeterministic
(3) most deterministic theories don't privelege the past over the present or future

And the article finishes with a reference to Hoefer's argument for compatibilism (based on point 3 above). Saving the best for last

Bohmian mechanics tries to view a photon as a particle and give values of a particle in the sense of say a billiard ball, Schrodingers wave equation gives a set of values or wave functions that view a photon as a wave

Of course the problem is they are both right at the same time, but without doing both equations you can't get a representation of a photon, since it is both a wave or a particle depending on how you chose to measure it. In quantised terms say a photon striking another photon or a photon hitting an electron and exciting it to a higher energy state or quantum leap then we deal with light as a particle. as it propogates through a medium we describe it in it's wave like properties. It is interesting to note though that according to einsteins GR and SR theories light must be massless and that if it is then of course it is pure energy and cannot be a particle since - although it might have an extremley small mass nothing about the theory denies this as such - it has no rest mass it is pure energy, or is it?

The 2 slit experiment

Various other experiments (such as the photoelectric effect) had demonstrated that light interacts with matter only in discrete, "quantum"-sized packets called photons

If sunlight is replaced with a light source that is capable of producing just one photon at a time, and the screen is sensitive enough to detect a single photon, Young's experiment can, in theory, be performed one photon at a time -- with identical results.

If either slit is covered, the individual photons hitting the screen, over time, create a pattern with a single peak. But if both slits are left open, the pattern of photons hitting the screen, over time, again becomes a series of light and dark fringes. This result seems to both confirm and contradict the wave theory. On the one hand, the interference pattern confirms that light still behaves much like a wave, even though we send it one particle at a time. On the other hand, each time a photon with a certain energy is emitted, the screen detects a photon with the same energy. Under the Copenhagen Interpretation of quantum theory, an individual photon is seen as passing through both slits at once, and interfering with itself, producing the interference pattern.

The two slits must be close to each other (about 1000 times the wavelength of the source), otherwise the spacing of the interference fringes would be too narrow to discern the interference pattern.

A necessary condition for obtaining an interference pattern in a double-slit experiment concerns the difference in pathlength between two paths that light can take to reach a zone of constructive interference on the viewing screen. This difference must be the wavelength of the light that is used, or a multiple of this wavelength. If a beam of sunlight is let in, and that beam is allowed to fall immediately on the double slit, then the fact that the Sun is not a point source degrades the interference pattern. The light from a source that is not a point source behaves like the light of many point sources side by side. Each can create an interference pattern, but the interference patterns of each of the many-side-by-side sources does not coincide on the screen, so they average each other out, and no interference pattern is seen.

The presence of the first slit is necessary to ensure that the light reaching the double slit is light from a single point source. The path length from the single slit to the double slit is equally important for obtaining the interference pattern as the path from the double slit to the screen.

Newton's rings show that light does not have to be coherent in order to produce an interference pattern. Newton's rings can be readily obtained with plain sunlight.1 More rings are discernable if for example light from a Sodium lamp is used, since Sodium lamp light is only a narrow band of the spectrum. Light from a Sodium lamp is incoherent. Other examples of interference patterns from incoherent light are the colours of soap bubbles and of oil films on water.

The width of the slits is usually slightly smaller than the wavelength (&#955 of the light, allowing the slits to be treated as point-sources of spherical waves, and reducing the effects of single slit diffraction on the results.

In general, interference patterns are clearer when monochromatic or near-monochromatic light is used. Laserlight is as monochromatic as light can be made, therefore laserlight is used to obtain an interference pattern.

If the two slits are illuminated by coherent waves, but with polarizations perpendicular with respect to each other, the interference pattern disappears.

Essentially photons exist in a superposition of themselves which means that in a two slit experiment with a single photon, the photon travels through both slits in a superposition and interferes with it self to produce the banded interference patterns, but if you actually measure which slit the photon travels through it is determined and there are no interference patters(that's pretty bizarre don't you think?) look into the Schrodingers cat thought experiment if you wish to get an insight about what this means.

The upshot of this of course is that we cannot know what position light or anything else in a wave is without measuring it and this collapses the wave function into a value(and of course according to heisenbergs uncertainty principle we can determine it's position but not it's speed because by measuring it we impart energy to the system) Before that it exists as a series of possible wave functions and interacts as such. Thus the posit that there is nothing deterministic about light, or anything that interacts in particle wave duality, such as electrons etc. at a fundemental level the interactions of matter cannot be determined, they are truly chaotic, in that we cannot predict what state they are in without opening the box to find out if the cat is alive or dead.

I've heard it bandied around though that the quantum never impinges on the macro world it does(under QM laws it should given enough time be possible for every particle in my body to spontaneously dissapear and then appear on Mars, it's unlikely but given enough time I.e all the time in the univers it becomes probable or even likely) this is complete nonsense of course in another sense too without that quantum mechanics you wouldn't be sitting here typing now because the microchip as we know it depends on QM theory for it's very existence.

What this means is that we can never view ourselves as being materialistic because

a) we can't at a fundemental level say exactly how things behave or interact, so say an electron might tunnel across a very close synapse producing a slightly chaotic or random thought(an intuition or inspiration) we can never produce a precise picture of what we are made up of and how they effect our general make up

b) there is no such thing as past present or future as such and none of them are dependant on each other when talking about a discreet quanta of time, or a+b is not equal to a+b, so that nothing that is in the past is any indication necessarily of us. Even the past isn't deterministic(thus materialism is wrong)

c) concious thought in and of itself cannot be explained because of above reasons an because it is not governed by just the material, by looking at the model itself so determinism is pointless when looking at the hard problem.

d) a theory that no moment in time is indicative of or predicts or is affected by any other moment is a pretty close definition of free will in a concious sense and a physical one. But it is not necessary to invoke free will to destroy materialism, it is patently obvious from scientific theory that it cannot explain what is essentialy at the heart of us. Our conciousness and it is also not indicative of anything we've done can do or ever will do, it simply fails to hold water when modern science comes into the picture.

We are not the sum of our parts we are greater than the sum of our parts, that much is self evident.

That's my theory anyway

 

[punkbass2000]

fribble

XCLXCL

???

Clearly disproving free-will. Good work, Gothmog

 

[cgannon64]

Cgannon's had too much to drink,
His brain's impaired, he cannot think;
A delightful post has been misplaced
Because his tonic, with gin, was laced.

Lest we forget.

Far from it! A stray finger misplaced my delightful post. But anyway, to rewrite it now...

For me it isn't that the question doesn't matter, I think it does and have pondered it for a long long time, its that I reached the conclusion that its existence of lack thereof would make zero difference in my actions or how I live my life.

It ought to, at least, affect how you feel about your life - and that, in turn, should affect how you live it.

It's their interaction with the external world that creates an individual. They ensure that e.g. a human does not become a dog, but they have much less effect on variation within a genotype.

For example, every cell in our body shares exactly the same DNA. Do they all look the same to you? Do they all perform the same tasks? No and no. In the same way our DNA does not account for the individual we become, for our phenotype.

Yes, and this is a point I made earlier in the thread: How can we say what an individual ends, when there is no stark line between what is 'inside' the system and 'outside'? How is the idea of 'I' even tenable?

You need to explain what you mean by control here. I would say the both have exactly the same responsibility over their actions... that is all of it.

So, it seems you agree with me - now, how can we justify treating irrational, crazy criminals different than rational ones?

If you are just a material being then you have full responsibility for everything that you do. There is no hiding from it, no 'the devil made me do it', no claiming to be working under a higher purpose.

How can you have responsability for what we have no control over? That is my point: with materalism, the number of things we can say we "control" just shrinks and shrinks until it approaches nothing.

Now as to control, well, I didn't choose to be a human in the first place. Nor who my parents would be, nor where or when I would exist, etc., etc. Even if we alow the existence of free will for a moment, these factors have a much larger effect on who we become than the small area that free will is currently relegated to. What I must do is take responsibility for being me, that's all.

But you just said you didn't have control over who you are - so how can you be responsible for being who you are? And, since what you do pretty much follows ineluctably (according to materialism) from who you are, how can you have responsibility for that?

As I say above, it is potenital future threat to society that matters in this context. Punishment doesn't change anything, IMO the criminal system should not be in the business of punishment but of helping to improve society; obviously many disagree.

Indeed this is the only logical form of prison. But let's imagine yet another (already imagined) dystopian vision: What if murderous tendencies could be predicted, with certainty? Why not jail people preemptively?

It's not I who wants this to happen to any viewer, but rather the person who demands that materialists answer the hard problem. Answering the hard problem would require that "purely physical" observations of brains would remind one of the smell of a rose, the feeling of pain, etc. Only if such reminding consistently happened would one be able to draw the connection between the "physical" and the "subjective". And I agree, that is not going to happen, and the hard problem remains hard. But my point is, materialism predicts that the hard problem remains hard.

I agree with your sentiment here, but I still don't understand your reasoning. Why, exactly, would a visual depiction of the phsyical apparatus of consciousness have to result in a reminder of consciousness to prove that the one follows from the other? That seems like a random conclusion which you jumped to, and I don't think it's necessary to prove that the hard problem is hard - even without that idea, it remains hard.

There is no distinction between "soul theory" and "materialism" on the question of the hard problem of consciousness - both predict that it should be hard.

Now hold on. They are hard in different ways: materialism makes it hard because it cannot explain why consciousness exists; "soul theory" makes it hard because it has trouble (although it's not necessarily impossible!) to explain how it operates.

DNA may control the shape and size of your face (actually, diet matters too) but it doesn't control your behavior. Next, you encompass all particles within the human being and suggest they control his behavior - yes that's true, but it's just another way of saying that he controls his own behavior. All thoughts and decisions are, by hypothesis, encompassed in the activity of those particles.

You admit, parenthetically, that outside factors can control physical features; I'm pretty sure you'd admit the same for behavior. Should you accept this, then it's pretty clear that you cannot say "This grouping of cells is me, and it ends here." This is a point I've been harping on all thread: Why is there a stark line drawn between the individual and non-individual in materialism? The only reason to is because feel attached to one body - but disregarding this wishy-washy sentiment (which is the only materialist thing to do, as it does with free will), why beleive that?

And even if we accept the stark dividing line, it's still inadequate. Do the friendly bacteria who help me digest food make up part of 'me'? If I can lose an arm and still think identically, why is that part of 'me'? We need to create another definition of what makes up the individual, and others fail in different ways, I think. Perhaps we could try control - I am whatever I feel like I can control. But aren't I the bat in my hand then? Let's try another: I am what I can feel. But what if I lose sensation in a certain area? They're all unsatisifying in one way or another...

I'm not trying to smuggle souls in by the back door, if that's what you mean. I'm pointing out that "control" in the legal framework has a lot to do with rationality, and I propose to define control in terms of rationality. Controlling what you consider rational would just be redundant; what matters is that you are rational. A little more specifically, your rationality rises to the level where it is self-sustaining and self-reinforcing.

But why should we define it in terms of rationality? Irrational people have just as much control over their bodies as rational people, don't they? If not, why not? They might not control their bodies in a rational way - they might use their heads to batter down doors - but they still, on some level, want to do that, just as you or I do. And, if they don't feel that they want that - imagine say, a person who is insane and feels 'possessed' - isn't that just a delusion, a lack of connection between what they do and feel they control?

Your definition seems like a trick: It's taken the word 'control', and replaced its meaning with that of 'rational'.

As for choosing a known-to-be-lesser option, I find the question of "can I" moot. I certainly don't intend to, so who cares if I can?

Viscerally, we certainly do. I feel like I can reform my desires if I want to; and if that's untrue, then there's an integral part of my pysche lost.

 

[El_Machinae]

How can we say what an individual ends, when there is no stark line between what is 'inside' the system and 'outside'? How is the idea of 'I' even tenable?

I think I can spin the question. What can be taken from 'you' and have 'you' remain. Like I've said before, the arms, heart, eyes, and memories of Aunt Bessey and your life at age 3 can 'go' and you will still be 'you'.

So, what can you lose? What can't you lose?

 

[cgannon64]

I think I can spin the question. What can be taken from 'you' and have 'you' remain. Like I've said before, the arms, heart, eyes, and memories of Aunt Bessey and your life at age 3 can 'go' and you will still be 'you'.

So, what can you lose? What can't you lose?

This is an interesting question. It depends on how minutely you want to measure 'lose'. We can certainly lose those physical elements - but can we lose that memory of Aunt Bessey without us changing, in some tiny, almost immeasurable way? Perhaps it would affect how we treat old ladies that remind us of Aunt Bessey, or perhaps it would prevent me from wanting to take that nostalgic trip back to Aunt Bessey's house - and does losing this sort of behavior change who I am?

 

[punkbass2000]

This is an interesting question. It depends on how minutely you want to measure 'lose'. We can certainly lose those physical elements - but can we lose that memory of Aunt Bessey without us changing, in some tiny, almost immeasurable way? Perhaps it would affect how we treat old ladies that remind us of Aunt Bessey, or perhaps it would prevent me from wanting to take that nostalgic trip back to Aunt Bessey's house - and does losing this sort of behavior change who I am?

Given that you're trying to define who "you" are in this scenario, does the question: "...does losing this sort of behavior change who I am?" even make sense? Change who who is?

Beyond that, what does it mean to "have" a memory? Can it be "lost"?

 

[cgannon64]

Given that you're trying to define who "you" are in this scenario, does the question: "...does losing this sort of behavior change who I am?" even make sense? Change who who is?

I was going to address this in an edit, but for some reason I didn't. The question must be flipped again...

Beyond that, what does it mean to "have" a memory? Can it be "lost"?

That's another difficult question. Some memories seem lost, but aren't; we won't even know we have them, and then suddenly, we do.

I suppose the only way to define 'lost' is that they will never, ever, ever come back to you. That obviously can't be determined until, well, you're dead.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Should you accept this, then it's pretty clear that you cannot say "This grouping of cells is me, and it ends here." This is a point I've been harping on all thread: Why is there a stark line drawn between the individual and non-individual in materialism? The only reason to is because feel attached to one body - but disregarding this wishy-washy sentiment (which is the only materialist thing to do, as it does with free will), why beleive that?

And even if we accept the stark dividing line, it's still inadequate. Do the friendly bacteria who help me digest food make up part of 'me'? If I can lose an arm and still think identically, why is that part of 'me'? We need to create another definition of what makes up the individual, and others fail in different ways, I think. Perhaps we could try control - I am whatever I feel like I can control. But aren't I the bat in my hand then? Let's try another: I am what I can feel. But what if I lose sensation in a certain area? They're all unsatisifying in one way or another...

But why should we define it in terms of rationality? Irrational people have just as much control over their bodies as rational people, don't they? If not, why not? They might not control their bodies in a rational way - they might use their heads to batter down doors - but they still, on some level, want to do that, just as you or I do. And, if they don't feel that they want that - imagine say, a person who is insane and feels 'possessed' - isn't that just a delusion, a lack of connection between what they do and feel they control?

Viscerally, we certainly do. I feel like I can reform my desires if I want to; and if that's untrue, then there's an integral part of my pysche lost.

It is a nice post and much of it to my thinking. Where does the "self" begin and end is a basic and difficult question. If a person is empathetic, does their self include other selves? At the molecular level, how separeated are we from our suroundings? At the Quantum level? At what level of discernment do we physically distance ourselves from what is around us? Do mothers ever break their bonds with their kids, or do they have a permanent psychological bond that extends who they are to their kids?

I still think that BE's quote addresses the ambiguity of the problem quite nicely.

 

[El_Machinae]

but can we lose that memory of Aunt Bessey without us changing

Oh, 'you' would change, absolutely. I'm VERY different from the person I was when I was 5 years old. I'm slightly different when I'm hungry, from when I'm full. However, in all those cases, I'm very much still "me".

My theory is that the "you" is stored in that part of the brain that activates when you ask the question "am I me?". I cannot prove it, because we'd have to test it by first looked for that nugget (fMRI can do this easily), but then destroy it to see if the person looses a vital element and no longer thinks of 'themselves'.

I would guess that every living person (who can be tested) has a section of their brain that lights up when they are tested, so (if true, but I cannot see how it's not) that's where 'that person' fundamentally is. Everything after that is augmentation.

 

[cgannon64]

My theory is that the "you" is stored in that part of the brain that activates when you ask the question "am I me?". I cannot prove it, because we'd have to test it by first looked for that nugget (fMRI can do this easily), but then destroy it to see if the person looses a vital element and no longer thinks of 'themselves'.

I've heard a similar idea proposed: that, of all the symbols we have of things in our brain, the symbol for "I" is the biggest and most complex of them - and that it is definitely where "I" am.

 

[Ayatollah So]

Now hold on. They are hard in different ways: materialism makes it hard because it cannot explain why consciousness exists; "soul theory" makes it hard because it has trouble (although it's not necessarily impossible!) to explain how it operates.

Neither one explains why consciousness exists. Why would a dimensionless, nonphysical "soul" be conscious? Why would a brain be conscious? In either case I think we are forced to say "it just is". (About the hard problem, that is - about the easy problems, though, brains explain much more than souls).

Why, exactly, would a visual depiction of the phsyical apparatus of consciousness have to result in a reminder of consciousness to prove that the one follows from the other? That seems like a random conclusion which you jumped to, and I don't think it's necessary to prove that the hard problem is hard - even without that idea, it remains hard.

"Visual depiction" is just serving as a representative for various means of brain observation, all taken together. It would be pretty easy to convert an EEG into an audible signal, if you wanted. The key points are that (1) all of these means by which we learn about brains are different from the means by which we feel pain and smell roses, and (2) our neurological theories place these senses in different parts of the brain. From these two points I draw the prediction (3) our memories of pain and the smell of a rose will never have a strong connection to our memories of looking at brains on MRIs, EEGs etc.

And why make point (3)? Because that is what would have to happen, I think, to have an intuitively satisfying answer to the hard problem: you would have to find that upon thinking in detail about brain activity, you found yourself led inexorably to a conception which you recognized as a conception of pain, or the smell of a rose, or so on. And our conceptions are based on our memories.

Let's do another example of finding out that "two" things are actually one.

Consider "the Morning Star" and "the Evening Star" as used by someone ignorant of astronomy. He doesn't realize that they are in fact the same thing. He has two conceptions of what are, in fact, one and the same thing. (Just as most people don't realize that "pain" and certain sorts of neural activity patterns are the same thing.) But, both conceptions have similar representations in his mind/brain: both are small bright points of white light in the sky, albeit on different horizons and at different times. Once our guy learns enough about Venus, he'll come to an "aha" moment because he'll recognize that this thing, which he's been following with his telescope, which he had thought of as "the Morning Star", has now moved across the sky and thereby fulfilled his conception of the Evening Star. But I don't think the "hard problem of consciousness" will ever yield a similar "aha" moment, because our two conceptions of the one thing are too disparate.

Next issue: control, self, and self-control

This is a point I've been harping on all thread: Why is there a stark line drawn between the individual and non-individual in materialism? The only reason to is because feel attached to one body - but disregarding this wishy-washy sentiment (which is the only materialist thing to do, as it does with free will), why beleive that?

And even if we accept the stark dividing line, it's still inadequate. Do the friendly bacteria who help me digest food make up part of 'me'? If I can lose an arm and still think identically, why is that part of 'me'? We need to create another definition of what makes up the individual, and others fail in different ways, I think. Perhaps we could try control - I am whatever I feel like I can control. But aren't I the bat in my hand then? Let's try another: I am what I can feel. But what if I lose sensation in a certain area? They're all unsatisifying in one way or another....

If you grab hold of my hand, the rest of me comes along. If you look at any of my cells, they have the same DNA. Such simplistic criteria will get us all the distinction between "self" and "other" that we need, I believe. Do the symbiotic bacteria in my gut count as part of me - who cares? You ain't sticking a needle into me to extract such bacteria either way, so fuhgedaboudit.

Perhaps there are "multiple personality disorder" people, or split-brain epilepsy patients, in which these kinds of questions have genuine practical bite to them. But for the most part there is one single coherent agent per human being. It is this character whom we love or hate, praise or condemn, set free or imprison.

But why should we define [control] in terms of rationality? Irrational people have just as much control over their bodies as rational people, don't they? If not, why not? They might not control their bodies in a rational way - they might use their heads to batter down doors - but they still, on some level, want to do that, just as you or I do. And, if they don't feel that they want that - imagine say, a person who is insane and feels 'possessed' - isn't that just a delusion, a lack of connection between what they do and feel they control?

Your definition seems like a trick: It's taken the word 'control', and replaced its meaning with that of 'rational'.

But these concepts are closely related. Some familiar lyrics from my "title" for this post might make that clear. Also, rationality figures importantly in our legal system in assessing responsibility.

Irrational people are still moved by desire, sure - and there is always some rationality left, so lack of control is never absolute. But, if a mental patient tells me he feels 'posessed', my first guess is that the coherent group of brain processes which are responsible for the statement, "I feel possessed", is sometimes not responsible for other actions. And that those processes that are responsible for those other actions, are largely disconnected from this bit of speech. In other words, my first guess is that he perceives something which is basically true (although the wording, "possessed", might be reading a bit too much into it.)

I feel like I can reform my desires if I want to; and if that's untrue, then there's an integral part of my pysche lost.

But you can reform your desires if you want to. Of course, you start from some total psychic state when you do, and that is why you want to reform.

It's like that old joke where the farmer tells the traveler, "You just can't get there from here." Only I'm telling you that you can get there from here. And you're telling me that that's not good enough, you want to just get there, but not get there from here.

 

[Perfection]

a) we can't at a fundemental level say exactly how things behave or interact, so say an electron might tunnel across a very close synapse producing a slightly chaotic or random thought(an intuition or inspiration) we can never produce a precise picture of what we are made up of and how they effect our general make upc) concious thought in and of itself cannot be explained because of above reasons an because it is not governed by just the material, by looking at the model itself so determinism is pointless when looking at the hard problem.

That doesn't neccearily follow, the universe can be deterministic if there are what are called "hidden variables" that influence quantum events.

Of course, most hidden variable thoeries nowadyas are untenable.

 

[cgannon64]

Neither one explains why consciousness exists. Why would a dimensionless, nonphysical "soul" be conscious? Why would a brain be conscious? In either case I think we are forced to say "it just is". (About the hard problem, that is - about the easy problems, though, brains explain much more than souls).

But it does. The ideas about a soul say that consciousness is the presence of a soul, and the idea of a nonconscious spirit is as meaningless as a rock without matter. (So then the question of, "Why is a spirit conscious?" is as stupid as asking, "Why is a rock made up of matter?") It's proposing that consciousness is an aspect of a different world - a world where only consciousness exists, and nothing but - and the union between the spiritual, consciousness-filled world and the physical, consciousnessless world is how we exist.

With materialism, on the other hand, we have this intangible, confusing 'other' concept which appears otherworldly, but which materialism wants us to believe is the result of regular ol' stuff going on right here.

(By the way, I'm curious, since you seem to beleive materialism fails to explain consciousness, what do you beleive explains it?)

But I don't think the "hard problem of consciousness" will ever yield a similar "aha" moment, because our two conceptions of the one thing are too disparate.

This I'll agree with. (I still think your example was a confusing and round-about way to put this, though. ) However, this doesn't quite KO the materialist explanation of consciousness: it's just saying that it's impossible to understand fully, but not that it's inadequate. Now, tell me, do you beleive that it is inadequate, and that simple interactions of neurons can't explain consciousness, or what? I have a feeling that you do, but I don't want to make a hasty assumption.

If you grab hold of my hand, the rest of me comes along. If you look at any of my cells, they have the same DNA. Such simplistic criteria will get us all the distinction between "self" and "other" that we need, I believe. Do the symbiotic bacteria in my gut count as part of me - who cares? You ain't sticking a needle into me to extract such bacteria either way, so fuhgedaboudit.

Dude, this is such a cop-out! Your'e essentially saying, "I'm not gonna define what 'I' am since I know what it is, and stop asking me!"

It may seem academic and stupid to define precisely what the individual is, but I think it's important if a soul is not proposed. A soul clears up the question straightaway - an individual is his soul and the body just a means. But, without the soul, it is important: Cuz if you're going to define people by their bodies, we better establish what that means!

But for the most part there is one single coherent agent per human being. It is this character whom we love or hate, praise or condemn, set free or imprison.

Yes, but this question still holds weight. What will damage or alter that single coherent agent? What will change it so much that we can't consider it the same agent that it was before?

Irrational people are still moved by desire, sure - and there is always some rationality left, so lack of control is never absolute.

Well then, if everyone is rational on some level, how much rationality is needed to put someone in jail, and how little to put someone into a mental asylum? Should smarter, more rational people get more jail time than dumber, less rational people? The problems in this defintion are real...

But, if a mental patient tells me he feels 'posessed', my first guess is that the coherent group of brain processes which are responsible for the statement, "I feel possessed", is sometimes not responsible for other actions. And that those processes that are responsible for those other actions, are largely disconnected from this bit of speech. In other words, my first guess is that he perceives something which is basically true (although the wording, "possessed", might be reading a bit too much into it.)

Now, this relates to something I said to WillJ: It seems cruel to punish a person like this. The possession may only be an illusion, but if it's a persistent one, than they're going to suffer for something they feel like they couldn't have avoided. Is that fair?

But you can reform your desires if you want to. Of course, you start from some total psychic state when you do, and that is why you want to reform.

It's like that old joke where the farmer tells the traveler, "You just can't get there from here." Only I'm telling you that you can get there from here. And you're telling me that that's not good enough, you want to just get there, but not get there from here.

I think the lack of freedom involved here is way more serious than you make it out to be.