Egnor doesn’t agree with cosmopsychist philosophers like Philip Goff (right) but his reasoning is worth noting:
Philosopher Philip Goff is an advocate for cosmopsychism, the viewpoint that the universe itself is conscious and that we partake in some fashion in this universal consciousness. It’s a variant of panpsychism—the view that everything has consciousness of a sort.
I don’t believe that either panpsychism or cosmopsychism is true. But I have some sympathy with people who hold those views. They take consciousness seriously in a way that materialists don’t. There is no doubt that consciousness is a fundamental property of existence, at least of animal and human existence. As Descartes observed, to even ask about consciousness is to exercise it…
There is no doubt that consciousness is a fundamental property of animal and human existence. As philosopher Philip Goff notes, a philosophy that cannot plausibly account for it cannot be correct.
Michael Egnor, “Why materialism fails as a science-based philosophy” at Mind Matters News
See also: Four researchers whose work sheds light on the reality of the mind The brain can be cut in half, but the intellect and will cannot, says Michael Egnor. The intellect and will are metaphysically simple
I don’t know where Egnor gets the idea that materialists don’t take the problem of consciousness seriously. Following David Chalmers, we recognize it’s a hard one. We just don’t see how postulating a creator God solves it unless you can account for a conscious God.
If belief in an infinite, omniscient and omnipotent god, as the Designer of our world, is true, but not perfectly explanatory, it is still an improvement on casting about endlessly in the hope of a more ‘convenient’ postulation that doesn’t ‘let God’s foot in the door’.
Disdaining the path to truth on doctrinaire grounds is rather akin to ‘cutting off your nose to spite your face’ : petulance, foot-stamping – reflecting anything but a love of science, even in terms of the derivation of the word, ‘science’.
Seversky states:
Apparently atheistic materialists, such as Seversky, don’t really follow Chalmers too closely on the ‘hard problem’ of consciousness, or else they would not be atheistic materialists: As Philip Goff himself noted, David Chalmers is on the fence as to whether pansychism or substance dualism is correct.
Of note, ‘illusionism’ is born out of materialistic metaphysics:
Of related note, David Chalmers is semi-famous for getting the ‘hard problem’ of consciousness across to lay people in a very easy to understand manner:
Also of related note, the reason why materialists have such a hard time understanding quantum mechanics is because fundamental, defining, attributes of the immaterial mind, (specifically free will and ‘the experience of ‘the now”), are extremely tightly correlated with the ‘spooky’ actions we witness in quantum mechanics:
BA77 @3
I don’t see any practical or functional difference between a solipsist and someone who believes that consciousness is an illusion (a belief widespread enough that, by now, its believers ought to be added to the lexicon under the second or third definition of the word “illusionist,” below the magicians at number one).
Except for the fact that illusionists, to remain consistent, must allow themselves a psychological dysfunction that isn’t required of solopsists, since the latter don’t have to convince themselves that they, themselves, don’t exist: “Who am I going to believe? Science, or my own lying eyes?“