Hokusai

(2) What 'evidence' has been put to me? Please point me to it. I've seen arguments which may be summarised as "consciousness must be material becasue we say so, and if you want to say any different you'll have to prove it . . .", but that isn't exactly evidence.

Comment #473670 by Mark Smith on March 28, 2010 at 2:55 pm

Hokusai
I'm back after watching an exciting game of boys football. A fine 5 - 3 victory!


What does the word "me", above, mean?

The answers given by others above pretty much cover it for me also: 'me' is a (very useful) construct of the brain. 'You' on the other hand are the animal which my brain posits as the reason for various words which keep appearing on the screen in front of me.

It would seem that you are suggesting that I should reflect on my self-consciousness and conclude from it that there is something more to 'me' than mere brain activity. I would agree that the sense of self is very strong, and I can see why people conclude as you do. But there is plenty of evidence to suggest they are wrong to do so. To give just one example, for a number of hours every day 'I' disappear or dissolve away. That disappearance appears to correlate with reduced brain activity during certain periods of sleep.

Do you have anything more than intuition to support your view that 'me' is more than brain activity?

I gave 'just one example' because plenty of others have been given elsewhere: brain tumours, drugs, magnets etc etc all altering sense of self. Each time such things are brought up you fail to engage other than with an argument from authority (you know the answer because you are a doctor who worked in the field and because you are clever) and an argument from prevarication (you will get to it in a moment).