The mind-body problem and the irrationality of the brain’s phenomenal judgements

Abstract

The article gives a brief overview of the problems faced by materialism in connection with the phenomenon of consciousness. Yet new arguments help to uncover the problems of alternative positions to materialism, above all, the dualism of properties. Key arguments show that it is difficult for non-physical consciousness to perceive its own nature even when it has direct access to experience. That is due to the fact that the physical substratum of consciousness implements a self-sufficient physical intelligence. And if that intelligence ceases to conclude that consciousness is non-physical, which would be unreasonable to it, then non-physical consciousness, despite any arguments it has had, inevitably comes to the wrong conclusion for itself that it is not non-physical. It turns out that consciousness requires such a study to know its nature, which paradoxically comes to the truth only in the error of the physical intelligence, with the latter constituting the intellectual faculties by which such inquiry is made. Such a need for error is difficult to justify. Likewise, by similar logic, it is impossible to prove flawlessly the existence of non-physical consciousness. If it existed, an individual with a perfect intelligence and direct, non-physical access to consciousness would come to a corresponding anti-physicalist conclusion on its basis. But such an outcome cannot happen, since this conclusion depends on an equally perfect and error-free physical intelligence, for which it is not true. Thus, we are deprived of sufficient justification to conclude that our consciousness is non physical. At the end, a path to finding a solution to the problem of consciousness is briefly outlined, providing a way out of a situation where there is such a strong critique for all positions in the philosophy of consciousness. It is related to an exploration of the nature of our antiphysicalist ideas.