W - are you sure that’s not just a sinus infection?
LOL, I simply don’t assume that something must have extension in order to be a “literal referent”. Your posts are quite incoherent without that assumption, and internally inconsistent with it.
Show me.
Premise 1: Subjective experiences exist
Premise 2: I exist
Premise 3: Everything that exists is material
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We accept these premises because? For example, I have some problems with 1 and 2.
It follows, but because I don’t share those premises, why should I accept the argument?
All well and good, but the same problems as in the first example occur.
Agreed, this would be the crux of the disagreement.
I actually do think that a materialist ought have a broader metaphysical outlook so that their conception of matter can be justified. Understandably, such a position does have some problems, as does any philosophical outlook. I will say I don’t see it as any weaker than any other metaphysical stance, but I do see that it offers a great deal that other stances don’t.
The verificationalist solution would be to simply collapse these issues. We define “brain” and “mind” separately for purely classical reasons, why should I accept pre-modern conceptions of how thought occurs?
Likewise, the mind-body problem only exists in philosophical traditions that posit them as being distinct. Why should I bother with such a position? It isn’t necessarily ‘bad’ or even ‘wrong’, but why should I treat it differently from something like Christianity, which is a position I can respect even if I both reject it and think it is ultimately wrong?
After we deal with issues raised in 1-3 (A and B), we can approach the rest. I may even find some agreement with some of the later positions. Though they’d probably have to be significantly reformulated.
You freely speak of metaphors and abstractions as existing, but then claim they don’t exist.
Look, if only extended things have being or are something, then you can’t account for species. Take the example used earlier of “dog”, if the only thing that exists are extended things, then how do you account for the fact that you are able to recognize specific dogs as dogs. If thought doesn’t really exist, then what the fuck are we doing now? How do you account for images in the mind. ect ect.
I don’t claim that they literally exist.
You’re just talking some sort of Platonist rationalist gibberish.
I’m disappointed.
Don’t let my example of species distract you, this has little to do with Platonism. It is closer to phenomenology. I put no primacy in thought, it’s just retarded to say that something must have extension in order to exist or have being.
Great argument.
Blew me away.
You should really turn pro.
What argument? I was showing you where you said something must have extension to exist, and defending against reactionary mischaracterizations of my position. There was nothing to argue.
Yeah, something must exist in spacetime to literally exist.
There’s a shocker.
Anything else is metaphysics.
What “position” are you talking about?
No, what you are talking about is metaphysics.
You’re still working under the framework that posits an absolute distinction between the intentional and the physical. Only you think you’ve overcome it because you “overcame” dualism. This distinction is still implicit in what you have said, only it is hidden because you just deny that the intentional exists at all(whatever that means). I don’t want to posit an absolute gulf in being, only to find that I have to deny one and end in Cartesian absurdity or deny the other and end in an absurd definition of man. It may work for you and that’s fine, but don’t act like it is ridiculous to question this distinction, and thus question the denial of the intentional.
This unrecognized distinction that leads to a denial of intentional leads to a definition of man that is not man. Man considered as an object of nature is nonsense…as an animal plus. This is phenomenology 101, and your misunderstanding is, in a sense, the being of “your” Dasein.
Riiiiight.
Not an animal “plus”.
Just an animal that talks.
No, a being-there’s being-in-the-world. 
Anway, this travesty is over, perhaps I will start a thread on phenomenology in it’s wake since I didn’t get to explore it here.
Well, good luck. You have to be the only phenomenologist left on the planet.
I am no phenomenologist, just reading the stuff and taking it for a spin. It’s influence is quite widespread…existentialism and post-modern philosophy…blah blah blah… Heidegger afterall, is the heavy hitter of continental philosophy in the 20th century…blah blah blah
Whilst I agree that there is a lot of confusion and strawmen, I also think there is a genuine problem here.
You may be right Geoff, but i’m far from certain that the problem is urgent enough that we can’t withold judgement on that at least until science has a chance to gain some ground on several millenia of culturally ingrained dualist presumptions . . . What is the nature of the problem as you conceive it?
I tend to think we simply don’t know enough yet to be able to determine to what extent concsciousness is or isn’t material, and i don’t see the necessity of designating the truth of matter as either one or the other in the meantime . . . certainly neither of the binary sorts of positions you’ve highlighted here are unassailable, even working within the confines of a strictly scientific approach - so why try to force a conclusion?
There isn’t any other definition. If you try to define “consciousness” any other way then you end up refering to something else, such as brain activity or behaviour.
Then there’s not going to be any scientific explanation of it, is there? Science gives us explanations of real things, like how natural processes can produce biological complexity without the need for a designer or why CO2 emissions cause global warming. It doesn’t tell us anything about vague abstractions we can’t even nail down a definition for.
Sounds like eliminativism to me. You are saying minds are no more real than evil spirits.