Is the Filter Theory committing the ad hoc fallacy and is it unfalsifiable?

You make the mind sound very like a computer.

Do you believe that a computer is actually conscious while it is doing a calculation, or that a mind (yours for example) just clicks through a sequence of states and is never conscious at all?

I probably should respond to this in a little more detail rather than just calling it a straw man.

I do not think the brain is much like a computer. In the brain there are massive firings of neurons all in parallel. Nobody knows exactly how the brain works and how it does it, but yes, the evidence is strong that the brain is the thing that thinks. 

We can see this in the animal kingdom. Surely everything from insects to humans are using their brains to sense the world and drive their movements. As I have said many times, no, none of these animals needs a soul to do what it does. Interestingly, nobody here can seem to say if they agree (or disagree) on this obvious point. Ants, toads, monkeys and chimps all use their brains to do what they do. None needs a soul to do what it does.

So yes, brains can think. Toad brains think. Monkey brains think. Homo habilis brains thought. Brains think.

But can brains be conscious? I can see why you might resist that. But when you say brains don't think? That seems to deny all we know about biology. 

Could a computer some day be conscious? I don't think so, but if it was, it would be vastly different from what it is today. Today's computers are not even close. Human consciousness goes far beyond what computers can do.

I think the brain (plus perhaps anything else that is involved) produces consciousness. If the brain produces consciousness, is consciousness an illusion? No, it is very real. Consciousness is the set of actions of a brain (plus perhaps anything else involved) that builds a self that is self aware. But that consciousness is not material, nor is it non-material. It is simply the name we give for that set of actions by the brain (and anything else that might be involved).

To illustrate, a conversation is a set of actions by two or more people. A conversation is not made of molecules. A conversation is not a spiritual entity. It is a set of people doing what we call conversing.

Likewise a "mind" or a "consciousness" is just the name for that set of actions by our neurons (and whatever else might be involved.)

Things that are sets of actions by a group of entities include a party, a cattle stampede, a ballgame, a virus infection, a war, an avalanche, a mind, or a concert. A war or a conscious mind are not physical objects that you can hold in your hands. But they are very real.

In the end, we know a mind by the set of mental things that something does. That is all we really know about it. And there is no need to equate that set of mental things that are done to a "nonmaterial object", whatever that is.  We would not say a war or a ballgame are nonmaterial objects. Neither is a mind. It is simply that set of things that something does. That something is the brain (plus perhaps anything else that is involved.)

Interestingly, nobody here can seem to say if they agree (or disagree) on this obvious point. Ants, toads, monkeys and chimps all use their brains to do what they do. None needs a soul to do what it does.

So yes, brains can think. Toad brains think. Monkey brains think. Homo habilis brains thought. Brains think.

But can brains be conscious? I can see why you might resist that. But when you say brains don't think? That seems to deny all we know about biology.

Pretty sure I've told you what I think about animal souls a few times, but you miss the point when you say animals don't need souls.

The problem is not souls, the problem is matter which has no mental character cannot produce consciousness. One just has to look at Harris' critique of Materialism to see it would apply to animals:

We can say the right words, of course—“consciousness emerges from unconscious information processing.” We can also say “Some squares are as round as circles” and “2 plus 2 equals 7.” But are we really thinking these things all the way through? I don’t think so.

Consciousness—the sheer fact that this universe is illuminated by sentience—is precisely what unconsciousness is not. And I believe that no description of unconscious complexity will fully account for it. It seems to me that just as “something” and “nothing,” however juxtaposed, can do no explanatory work, an analysis of purely physical processes will never yield a picture of consciousness.

Trying to get around this problem by pointing to animals doesn't help at all - why Rosenberg uses animals to support his position that brains are made of matter that lacks mental character and the facts of current physics don't provide a way for one clump of matter (neurons) to be about another clump (Paris)...or anything else at all. [Of course, as noted previously, the correct take away is Materialism has to be false and there has to be more to reality.]

Now one *might* extend the argument [against Materialism] to the notion of souls, and possibly say animals have souls too. It depends on what metaphysical picture one is arguing for.

For example the Scholastics would say animal feeling and thoughts are explicable in their specific God created & ordered version of matter and no animal has a soul. Only humans, with their capacity for Rationality, would have souls.

Not saying I agree, since there are Survival cases that include animals, but I think this is a good example to distinguish the question of animal souls from animal consciousness.

[Laird]

Apologies, I meant the essay explains why Materialists have to commit to epiphenomenalism as part of its proof of contradiction against said Materialism.

Oh, I see. I still disagree: I think that the crucial element in such arguments is the (supposed) causal impotence of consciousness rather than epiphenomenalism as such, and so, any type of physicalism that doesn't in some way deny consciousness in the first place is subject to these arguments (that of Titus and that in the essay to which you linked and on which I commented).

Admittedly because Materialism is a pile of ad hoc, confused beliefs it is hard to pin down a clear understanding of what that metaphysics exactly entails.

We do know at least though that it places primary and sole causal powers in the physical, and thus denies all causal power to consciousness (where it even recognises the existence of consciousness), which is what makes the arguments in question successful (to the extent that they are, indeed, successful).

[Laird]

Here it is -> Kastrup basically accepts the randomness-determinism dichotomy that we reject.

Hmm, kind of. It's all confused terrain because (1) "determined" is commonly used in two different (relevant) senses, and (2) on one of those senses, the dichotomy is anyway defused - and irrelevant.

The problematic sense of "determined" is "necessitated". The non-problematic sense is "caused".

On the non-problematic sense, the dichotomy is irrelevant so long as it is the agent itself that "determines" its choice - that is, that it is the agent that causes its own choice without that choice being necessitated, i.e., without that choice being in some sense forced upon the agent.

Two key questions then are: which sense of "determined" is Bernardo using here, and is he thereby endorsing a dichotomy that we (or at least I) would not endorse?

There's a strong clue in this from his essay:

"[A]ll determined choices [...] always result from dispositions or necessities that precede them."

It looks to me there that by allowing for "determined" to mean not just "necessitated" but "necessitated or disposed" he escapes to a meaningful enough extent the problematic sense - maybe.

I also find it interesting that he makes a point that seems similar to one you've made on past occasions in the context of free will: "when we say that a process is random, we are merely acknowledging our ignorance of its potential underlying causal basis."

In any case, given that Bernardo, too, emphasises that free will is predicated on the agent "determining" its choice, I'm probably comfortable enough saying that his defence of free will is compatible with ours (or at least with mine).

Finally, I think it's worth noting that he is explicitly arguing for free will here!

[Laird]

Can it be a mere coincidence that sticking a hand in a fire hurts, or that sexual activity feels good? Such a suggestion strains credulity.

Can you imagine a species for which sticking one's hand in the fire felt good and sexual activity hurt? Natural selection, surely, would not favor such a species.

So why is your credulity strained that nature selected things the way it did?

A quick note up-front: I was quoting that which you've quoted me as having written directly.

You seem, though, to have missed the point that the author of the essay was making: that if conscious experiences are wholly determined (in the sense of "necessitated") by a non-conscious (physical) substrate - a brain or similar - then it doesn't matter how they feel, because they don't have any effect on anything anyway, including the behaviour which enhances or diminishes our survival.

Natural selection would not be operating on (irrelevant because casually impotent) feelings but on brain patterns which determined survival-promoting behaviour, regardless of how those brain patterns (and the behaviour they caused) felt.

We would, then, have no reason to expect survival-promoting behaviour to feel good, and survival-diminishing behaviour to feel bad, because how it felt wouldn't change anything about the way we acted (so as to enhance our prospects of survival) given our naturally selected brain states.

I can imagine that you might want to challenge this point, and there probably are good ways to challenge it, but you have to first understand it before you can do that!

[Laird]

Let me frame the questions that David and I are discussing in a different way. I would like to see more responses to this.

Question: Do the following need souls to do what they do? 

My answers are shown in red. Please feel free to post back with your answers, which do not need to be limited to just yes or no.

1. Waterfalls: no
   
2. Bacteria: no 
   
3. Sunflowers: no
   
4. Jellyfish: no
   
5. Ants: no
   
6. Toads: no
   
7. Monkeys: no
   
8. Chimpanzees: no
   
9. Homo erectus: no
   
10. Humans: no
    

I think that the reason why you haven't had any straightforward answers to this question is that it's poorly framed and based on terms that you define idiosyncratically.

It is poorly framed because whether or not an entity has (or, as you put it, "needs") a soul depends^[1] on whether or not it is conscious (and because "do what they do" is a strange way of referring to that which is potentially experiential), so the better framing of the question is:

Which of the following are conscious?

That's also a more interesting question for me (and others on this board) because I'm (we're) interested in exploring what the necessary and sufficient conditions for consciousness are. On that matter, you seem to have concluded that a sufficient condition for consciousness is having a functional brain (because, in your view, consciousness - or mind - is simply the "actions" of the brain), and seem to be satisfied to leave it at that, and not to explore the possibility of any other sufficient and/or necessary conditions for consciousness. I have concluded that having a brain is not (in and of itself) a sufficient condition for consciousness, as I explained in this reply to you (which you ignored).

[1] Consciousness entails having a soul - at least by one meaningful definition of "soul" in this context - because, according to that definition, the soul is the subject of consciousness, and consciousness necessarily has a subject. You, though, are working with a different understanding and definitions: that consciousness does not entail having a soul, and that it is merely the production of the workings of the brain. Hence the futility of trying to answer your question: it is predicated on your own terms, which are different than mine (and, I suspect, than those of most members of this board).

[Laird]

Are there even any modern day philosophers of mind that are epiphenomenalists? At least from what I know most use it to fill gaps on their theories instead of stating consciousness is purely epiphenomenal.

I don't know. I find all of this fascinating but I do very little reading of the philosophical literature, so I'm not up to speed on what's popular, what's not, and how these ideas are being used by modern-day philosophers.

Hmm, kind of. It's all confused terrain because (1) "determined" is commonly used in two different (relevant) senses, and (2) on one of those senses, the dichotomy is anyway defused - and irrelevant.

I'm just seeking clarification as sometimes the words 'defused' (as in an unexploded bomb) or 'diffused' (as in dispersed, spread out) occasionally are swapped by accident. Though I suspect you said what you intended to say. Thanks.

[Laird]

I'm just seeking clarification as sometimes the words 'defused' (as in an unexploded bomb) or 'diffused' (as in dispersed, spread out) occasionally are swapped by accident. Though I suspect you said what you intended to say. Thanks.

Yep, I did mean defused as opposed to diffused.