Right out of the gate I will reject dualism. Any phenomenon that defies physics needs extreme evidence which I simply don’t see.
It doesn’t need extreme evidence, just reason.
Physics exclusively deals with the quantifiable aspects of reality. However, there is more to consciousness than its quantifiable aspects. There is also raw feels, what it is like to experience green, pain, emotions and what have you.
This means that consciousness resides outside the ambit of physics. So it makes no sense to claim that consciousness defies physics.
And it’s ridiculous anyway because physics simply describes the patterns in our perceptual experiences, with those patterns being described by mathematics. How does the existence of the perceiver defy the patterns that he sees? It’s silly.
I gravitate towards something like Berkeley’s immaterialism rather than substance dualism, though.
This is clearly correct. We know the world through our observations, which clearly occur within our consciousness, and are thus at least equally proving our consciousness. When something is being observed, you can assume that the something else doing the observations must exist. If my consciousness observes the world, my consciousness exists. If my consciousness observes itself, my consciousness exists. If my consciousness is viewing only hallucinations, it still exists for that reason. I disagree with Descartes, but ‘I think therefore I am’ is true of logical necessity.
I do not like immaterialism personally, but it is more logically defensible that illusionism.
Refuting your illusionism about your own experiences is very easy; all that you have to do is look at your hands. If that can be denied by some razor, then so can all of science and mathematics as well.
This is the reason why I think it is important to treat repeatable experiences that can be verified by others as evidence. Of course, this already assumes that the world and physics are exist, as well as other people.
Under this principle, your hands are verifiable. But your qualia of colors is not; only that you have some way of distinguishing wavelengths.
It doesn’t need extreme evidence, just reason.
Physics exclusively deals with the quantifiable aspects of reality. However, there is more to consciousness than its quantifiable aspects. There is also raw feels, what it is like to experience green, pain, emotions and what have you.
This means that consciousness resides outside the ambit of physics. So it makes no sense to claim that consciousness defies physics.
And it’s ridiculous anyway because physics simply describes the patterns in our perceptual experiences, with those patterns being described by mathematics. How does the existence of the perceiver defy the patterns that he sees? It’s silly.
I gravitate towards something like Berkeley’s immaterialism rather than substance dualism, though.
This is clearly correct. We know the world through our observations, which clearly occur within our consciousness, and are thus at least equally proving our consciousness. When something is being observed, you can assume that the something else doing the observations must exist. If my consciousness observes the world, my consciousness exists. If my consciousness observes itself, my consciousness exists. If my consciousness is viewing only hallucinations, it still exists for that reason. I disagree with Descartes, but ‘I think therefore I am’ is true of logical necessity.
I do not like immaterialism personally, but it is more logically defensible that illusionism.
Refuting your illusionism about your own experiences is very easy; all that you have to do is look at your hands. If that can be denied by some razor, then so can all of science and mathematics as well.
This is the reason why I think it is important to treat repeatable experiences that can be verified by others as evidence. Of course, this already assumes that the world and physics are exist, as well as other people.
Under this principle, your hands are verifiable. But your qualia of colors is not; only that you have some way of distinguishing wavelengths.
Why does evidence need to be approved by other people? If you were alone on an island, would that make it impossible for you to learn anything?