Well, there's an interesting rhetorical move. I say "X is a pretty weak move, and Y is invalid". You quote only the first half and say "But it's not invariably invalid". Bah.
I don't see the problem. I was trying to emphasise that question begging is not the right diagnosis of the problem.
I suppose you might prefer to use some other term for the logical flaw I'm complaining about:
Yep. As above.
But how does positing consciousness as fundamental help you in either respect? And, if it doesn't, how does it help at all? It seems to me that it just serves to discourage you for looking for better explanations.
You're not distingusihing the cases where the posit is part of a theory and where it isn't. Where we have a theory, we can test it. We don't have a satisfactory dualist or physicalistic theory. So what is going on at this stage is not really theorisation,. but speculation about the form a theory should take.
Of course. Perhaps it wasn't clear what I was asking. You said "Those would be the factors that ..." but I can't tell what things you were referring to; you said "a good explanation" but I can't tell what good explanation
As I indicated, that is difficult to answer succintly. I think the posit of colour charge works within QCD, but saying what is good about QCD is like summarising Proust.
You're not distinguishing the cases where the posit is part of a theory and where it isn't.
I think we're failing to communicate, because that distinction is an important part of what I'm getting at. The proponents of consciousness-as-fundamental show no sign of having any interest in making consciousness into part of a theory that's any use, and that's part of what I think is wrong with what they're saying.
that is difficult to answer succinctly.
You seem not to be willing to try to answer at all. You won't say what you meant, you won't say whether yo...
Background
I was raised in the Churches of Christ and my family is all very serious about Christianity. About 3 years ago, I started to ask some hard questions, and the answers from other Christians were very unsatisfying. I used to believe that the Bible was, you know, inspired by a loving God, but its endorsement of genocide, the abuse of slaves, and the mistreatment of women and children really started to bother me.
I set out to study these issues as much as I could. I stayed up past midnight for weeks reading what Christians have to say, and this process triggered a real crisis of faith. What started out as a search for answers on Biblical genocide led me to places like commonsenseatheism.com. I learned that the Bible has serious credibility problems on lots of issues that no one ever told me about. Wow.
My Question
Now I'm pretty sure that the God of the Bible is man-made and Jesus of Nazareth was probably a failed prophet, but I don't have good reasons to reject the supernatural all together. I'm working through the sequences, but this process is slow. I will probably struggle with this question for months, maybe longer.
Excluding the Supernatural was interesting, but it left me wanting a more thorough explanation. Where do you think I should go from here? Should I just continue reading the sequences, and re-read them until the ideas gel? I'm coming from 30 years of Sunday School level thinking. It's not like I grew up with words like "epistemology" and "epiphenomenalism". If there is no supernatural, and I can be confident about that, I will need to re-evaluate a lot of things. My worldview is up for grabs.