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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 1/30/2015 7:43 AM, William Flynn
Wallace wrote:<br>
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cite="mid:CAO+xQEYs0CHfQWXdHV76evWFv=_qJqR92pQHqOy9YVW_oYKFPA@mail.gmail.com"
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<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:comic sans
ms,sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(0,0,0)">One side of
this debate says that subjective experiences are
metaphysical. So I have two comments:<br>
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<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:comic sans
ms,sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(0,0,0)">1 - How does
one go about proving the existence of something metaphysical?
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<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:comic sans
ms,sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(0,0,0)">By proving
that physical causes don't exist for that experience? Isn't
that trying to prove a negative?<br>
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<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:comic sans
ms,sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(0,0,0)">2 - Since
nothing has ever been shown to be metaphysical (no way to
measure it), why would one ever start from that as an
assumption? Why, in fact, believe in anything at all
metaphysical, in the most literal sense? Demons and angels?
Ghosts? (It does seem that many people will believe in these
things rather than what science says. If anyone has any doubt
that we are an intellectually flawed species, just look at
that fact.)<br>
<br>
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<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:comic sans
ms,sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(0,0,0)">In short,
there seems to me to be no way to establish that metaphysical
causes exists for anything. At least, no scientific way.
Playing with words, thought experiments, and just sheer
sophistry don't do the job.<br>
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Either you didn't read the paper entitled "Detecting Qualia"
(<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Vxfbgfm8XIqkmC5Vus7wBb982JMOA8XMrTZQ4smkiyI/edit?usp=sharing">https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Vxfbgfm8XIqkmC5Vus7wBb982JMOA8XMrTZQ4smkiyI/edit?usp=sharing</a>)
or you didn't understand any of it. You must have at least read
the title: "Detecting Qualia", but evidently you refuse to
understand what most people understand such to mean, as proof by you
asserting that there is "no way to measure it". Since you don't
seem to get it, I guess I'll have to explain it to you: Detecting,
is the same as measuring, and if it is detectable, it is physical,
and experimentally demonstrably to all to be physical, just like all
physics.<br>
<br>
Brent Allsop<br>
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