In my Not Merely False post I made the following statement.
It is not possible even in principle to account for mental facts . . . on the basis of physical facts.
For anyone who has read Thomas Nagel’s Mind and Cosmos, this phraseology should be familiar, because the idea for the post came from that book. Yes, I am basing an assertion on the writings of a materialist author (albeit one who is uncommonly honest about the shortcomings of materialism).
In response Graham2 wrote:
If you people insist on such vague, slippery terms such as a ‘mental fact’ then these discussions are pretty pointless. What on earth is a ‘mental fact’ ?
By “you people” I suppose Graham2 is referring to ID proponents, which is ironic indeed given the provenance of the phrase. Here Graham2 is employing a common materialist tactic. When they have no argument, they resort to what I call the “me no speaka the English distraction.” We have seen this so many times I am going to put a formulation of it in the Weak Argument Corrective section of the site. As we sometimes do here at UD, I am going to open this up for contributions by our readers. I will select the best formulation and post it in the WAC. Thanks in advance to the UD community for their assistance.
The formulation should take this form: The me no speaka the English distraction (“MNSTED”) is . . . . The MNSTED is an illegitimate response to an argument because . . .
I will leave you with a funny video: