Nice piece. I completely agree.

My objections to A REFUTATION OF QUALIA-PHYSICALISM by Michael McKinsey of Wayne State University

My primary objection is that while Michael McKinsey (MM) spends much time looking in great detail at the minutia of logical possibilities, metaphysical possibilities, and conceivability of facts and propositions, he nowhere (that I can see anyway) acknowledges thefactthat information of any sort must be embodied somewhere and somehow. I assert this fact as fact because, as far as I know, there is nothing at all which lines up with modern science and yet also supports the idea that information can be totally disembodied. For me this means that both MM and David Chalmers are purporting to perform what amounts to a form of conjuring trick. That is to say their complex arguments seek to pursuade us of the strength and exactness of their reasoning while (carefully?) never mentioning how their respective schemas are founded upon a particularbeliefwhich I will politely call a dubious legacy of the pre scientific universe.

So, to be explicit, I assert what I callphilosophical materialitywhich is to say that that if something truly does exist thenit has to be somewhere now. I also assert that existence also entails that everything which truly exists will be itself and not another thing at some order of magnitude and structure. This rests on the idea thatstructureper se is something intrinsic to being, in our universe at least. I can argue for this if that is desired by anyone who reads this. Without such a request I will just say my ontological assertions rest upon three synthetic a prioris:

I exist;

there is a universe- iethere that which is not me; and

there is multiplicity.

MM ends his very long argumentation by allowing that there is most likely to be a metaphysical connection between subjective experience and the physical brain but he can't say what it is.

IMO the reason for that is he is confused, possibly because he hasn't realised the strength of his assumption that information does not have to be embodied. Howeverwhen we acknowledge that information is always embodied it becomes clear that subjective mental events are not just associated with brain activity, they are indeed some part of brain activity.

I have argued in the DLS created UMSITW camp that dynamic logical structures trulyexistwhilst they are active and thus they provide the missing conceptual link between mental events and the workings of the brain. Put simply: they are the components of the something-or-other which it is like something to be it.

I think that MM's argument is spurious and therefore not worthy of equal status with other camps it is currently lined up with. I also think that several other camps should actually be recognised as sub-camps of DLS Create UMSITW!