The above are all my thoughts, but I guess to phrase things in the form of questions for you, just to put the ball in your court:
- Why do you think you could tell if you're a brain-in-vat vs brain-in-skull? It seems to me quite hard to rule out the possibility that nothing would let us in on the knowledge that we're trapped in the Matrix.
- Second, what do you think is required for self-consciousness? The VERY important point here to really address my concerns would be: I might agree that just 'I' by itself may not be coherent, however, conservatively all this implies is any experiential property must have more than the feeling of 'I' -- something apart from that feeling.
From where is there arising a further requirement that there must, apart from the feeling of I-ness, be a non-mental substance?
As bonus questions, though:
(a) Why couldn't the feeling of "I-ness" stand by itself? Why must there even be other experiential data like the taste of ice cream (or other data like the existence of icre cream for real)... this is STILL not an object with no properties, rather it is more a mental substance with no property but the feeling of I-ness.
Is your answer to this something like the feeling of I seems to have to be accompanied with being about something?
(b) What about the almost opposite case: experiential properties without a feeling of "I" accompanying. Vaguely, this corresponds to Buddhism, maybe, i.e. there is no 'I' even if there are experiences.
- Why do you think you could tell if you're a brain-in-vat vs brain-in-skull? It seems to me quite hard to rule out the possibility that nothing would let us in on the knowledge that we're trapped in the Matrix.
- Second, what do you think is required for self-consciousness? The VERY important point here to really address my concerns would be: I might agree that just 'I' by itself may not be coherent, however, conservatively all this implies is any experiential property must have more than the feeling of 'I' -- something apart from that feeling.
From where is there arising a further requirement that there must, apart from the feeling of I-ness, be a non-mental substance?
As bonus questions, though:
(a) Why couldn't the feeling of "I-ness" stand by itself? Why must there even be other experiential data like the taste of ice cream (or other data like the existence of icre cream for real)... this is STILL not an object with no properties, rather it is more a mental substance with no property but the feeling of I-ness.
Is your answer to this something like the feeling of I seems to have to be accompanied with being about something?
(b) What about the almost opposite case: experiential properties without a feeling of "I" accompanying. Vaguely, this corresponds to Buddhism, maybe, i.e. there is no 'I' even if there are experiences.