my shell? Why, Amos....I prefer to think I sit, perched on an outcropping of Whitehead's actual entities, open to all input and attuned to the nuances of the cosmos!...do I have one of those zapped circuits that prevent me from receiving on a bunch of wavelengths? *shrug*....I dunno, if I don't 'hear' it, I don't hear it.

yeah, yer right...I did add something to your 'conciousness' concept, and in these exchanges we'd best be careful what we attribute to each other...

" I think we both agree, at least, that consciousness does exist."..

indeed- but then it gets interesting. I once posted on the Dept. of Phil. bulletin board, two quotes, one from Kant and one from Hume, almost identical in phrasing, agreeing that 'all knowlege begins with experience'....then below, I wrote, "Well, so far, so good..."

I'd REALLY like to win that keg & chips from you, but I suppose that any purported proof I might suggest could be disputed (or refuted), much as Dr. Johnson refuted Berkley's solipsism ...by kicking a stone. But then, perhaps MY theory could refute yours the same way.*grin*

It just boils down to what one accepts as basic truth and first principles. When a Christian says "I believe that the Bible is literal truth and Jesus was sent to....etc, etc..., there's really no way to tell him he can't believe that...and no way to 'prove' it isn't so.....except by dying, and if you're right, you don't even get to say "I told you so!"

I have **NO** trouble accepting that " ..all experience daily can be produced by molecules.." (or atoms, or quarks...whatever)....it's a very complex production, to be sure, but if I don't believe that, I might as well accept the religious doctrine of "intelligent design".

When you get right down to it, you and I both must 'act' in a similar way when eating those chips and drinking and enjoying that keg..(I guess we'll see in Oct., huh?) If anything really different goes on inside our respective heads/brains/conciousnesses, I don't know how we'd tell.

After all these years of debate and mumbling, the question that fascinates me is....How can two (or more) people look at the same data and arrive at totally different conclusions? I suppose the answer is that it is impossible to present identical data/input to different conciousnesses....and that situation allows us to agree about G.W. Bush, but disagree about the basis of reality...*grin*

not boring, is it?