the problem of consciousness is to account for its
internality and its reflectivity
consciousness is embedded in the physical world
at least in a class of physical entities
can we account for consciousness with a physicalist
analysis?
it would seem not
consciousness it seems is not observable in a public
objective sense
so how then to account for the apparent ontological
unity of conscious entities?
is consciousness a special case of the physical?
if so we have to drop or modify the above definition
of physical
do we want to include the non-observable - private -
subjective within physicalist ontology?
if so what does 'physical' come to?
physicalist analysis is a way to suggest materialism
but what is materialism - but not-spiritualism -
as the idea of fundamental substance?
and what is difficult about regarding consciousness
as material?
only that - it doesn't present - and present in
a material way
and if material - still the question - perhaps now
more acute - how to distinguish conscious from
non-conscious matter?
