Identifying As A Human Primate Animal

Crispin Bennett: Robert, You say that "what ‘I’ am is best understood to be a human primate animal body/mind, including the perceptions, feelings, and thoughts that such body/minds—gifted with human primate nervous systems—experience without the necessity that some exogenous ‘presence’ either take control or else stand aside in a posture of superiority as if the other ‘I’—the one who thinks, feels, and perceives—were the illusion.”

This is the bit that most puzzles me about your position. It doesn't seem to emerge from the same sceptical attitude towards scientistic consensus reality that you cast upon 'spiritual' worldviews. I take your point about the latter. It's clear much 'inner' or 'spiritual' investigation, done with the ghosts of Nisargadatta and Maharshi (et al) hovering, seem to be a form of self-indoctrination.

But consciousness really is a mystery, and the notion that it magically arises from 'nervous systems' is nothing more than a shibboleth of contemporary culture. We have no idea how or why such a thing might happen. At the moment all we have is desperate promissory notes and hand waving. Even "best understood" is a substantial overstatement. There isn't even a viable sketch of what a physicalistic theory of consciousness might look like yet.

Why not be equally sceptical here? You don't seem in general to be averse to a plain "I don't know" (I'm writing as someone firmly planted on the "I don't know shit" bank of the creek). It's possible to accept mystery without going all mysterian.

Hudson Street, NYC, 2019

Robert Saltzman: I am skeptical of all supposed facts, Crispin. To be considered factual, an idea or a perception requires supporting evidence, the more robust, the better. My first question is always, "And you know that how exactly?"

But skepticism does not mean disregarding evidence or arguing that facts and beliefs are equally valid “stories.”

When I awake needing to pee, I am faced with compelling proof of my animal nature, which is confirmed later when I observe my donkey peeing in very much the same fashion. Organs and tubes.

The lack of a “physicalist theory” of consciousness deters me not one iota from “identifying” as an animal, specifically a human primate mammalian animal. Since, like my donkeys, I bleed when I am cut and evince awareness of the features of my surroundings, it would be a hard lift to convince me that I am not an organic living being with all that entails.

Alternate views can be suggested, but any point of view requires at least one axiomatic assumption—one hypothesis that must be taken as a given. With some guidance from Occam’s Razor, I prefer the hypothesis at the heart of naturalism:

Everything arises from natural properties and causes, and supernatural or spiritual explanations are unnecessary.

Am I certain of that? Of course not. How could I be? What if spirit and matter are two entirely different ontological categories that never coincide? Or what if it’s all spirit, and we are non-material entities just dreaming a natural world?

Since we do not have complete information, anything is possible. Even far-fetched ideas cannot be ruled out entirely—how can you prove a negative? However, from my perspective, the evidence for naturalism is not only all around us but includes us—we who eat, sleep, etc., just like other naturally occurring living entities, and like them, are vulnerable to entropy and disintegration.

When various brain areas are damaged, predictable changes in consciousness—including, at times, its total absence—occur. That is strong evidence, in my view, that brains and consciousness are somehow correlated, entangled, implicated, enmeshed, and affiliated—not necessarily causally, but perhaps in ways we humans cannot even imagine.

Do you chalk those neurological observations up to “scientism,” too? To me, biology and physics—science, not “scientism”—are among the best ways to investigate “reality.” Apparently, not for you.

I never chose to prefer naturalism. My preference for commonsense realism is part of what “I” am, just as your resistance to “physicalism” seems part of what “you” are.

I have never said that '‘consciousness magically arises from nervous systems,” so that’s nothing but a straw man I suspect you have trotted out often. No one knows whence consciousness comes. But to doubt that one is an animal requires ignoring countless everyday observations. I see no justification for that.