Near death, explained

[Speck Tater]

58. Fair enough. (I think "hate speech" is a little over the top.)

you say: "actually, there is no reason why we should conclude a mind-body duality from this data." which implies a philosophical (or more correctly, metaphysical) choice as well. That quote should include the disclaimer "and we have chosen to make this decision based on the assumption that logic and the scientific method applies in these cases."

Of course anyone familiar with QM will have to try to reconcile "classical logic" with "quantum logic". (start with VonNeumann and Birkoff's 1936 paper The Logic of Quantum Mechanics) What seems like self-evident logic to we macroscopic creatures isn't so self-evident at the quantum level, so who's to say that "pure logic" (whatever that could possibly mean in the quantum era) is the best epistemological tool we have? In fact, that's a rather extraordinary claim! But that assumption is unstated, yet implicit in your quote.

And just as Riemann showed when he proposed alternatives to Euclid's assumptions, starting from a different, but equally valid set of assumptions can bring us to a radically different set of conclusions. The problem I have with naive materialism is that it leaves it's arbitrary assumptions unstated, and usually acts as if those assumptions are facts. In truth, many naive materialists don't even realize that they are basing their entire philosophical edifice on unstated, and unprovable metaphysical assumptions.

Put simply, we are unlikely to ever agree because your geometry is Euclidean and mine is Riemannian (or vice versa. It's a flexible metaphor, so choose whichever version of yourself you prefer.) Our fundamental axioms (unproven assumptions) are different, and you believe your axioms to be true and self-evident while I believe that my own axioms are true and self-evident. And since we start with different axioms, of course we arrive at different conclusions. And since we both believe our own set of axioms to be the only possible set, we will never change our axioms. So there you have it. Eternal impasse.